


A Simple Spell

by jarienn972



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Love Potion/Spell, Supernatural Elements, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2020-06-29 08:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 54,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19826470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarienn972/pseuds/jarienn972
Summary: This story is my entry into the 2019 Captain Swan Supernatural Summer event and is my first venture into AU territory. Storybrooke remains our setting but I've switched up some of the characters and familial relations to better suit this tale of prodigal witch Emma who returns to her birthplace to learn lots of secrets about herself and cast a spell that could change everything.





	1. Chapter 1

If there was one thing that Emma Swan had learned during her brief residency in Storybrooke, it was that she had a lot to learn.

_A whole lot to learn._

Perhaps it was finding the right teacher that had made adjusting more of a challenge than she'd anticipated but there was no doubt that she'd struggled during those early days. She'd battled with her self-confidence and fought against a sometimes crippling loneliness, but she'd needed to find those with like abilities - because in a town blessed (or cursed) with magic, proper instruction in the ways of the supernatural was an absolute necessity.

Eight months ago, she would never have even dreamed that a place like Storybrooke existed, let alone discover that this unusual little town had been her birthplace. Little details about her mysterious past emerged every day, but none more startling - and completely life changing - than the fact that she possessed a natural ability to utilize magic. It was becoming both equally fascinating and terrifying to learn new details about her past and the family that she and her late mother, Ava, had left behind.

Since she was a little girl growing up in one of the poorer sections of Boston, Emma had possessed an intense curiosity about her family. Maybe part of that stemmed from growing up in a city so steeped in history. She'd yearned to know more about her own ancestry, but her mother had never been particularly forthcoming about anything. It was always as though their past was some deep, dark secret - especially any mention of Emma's absent father who her mother scarcely even spoke of.

After her mother passed away, Emma found that her desire to find the family she was missing couldn't be tempered. She began actively utilizing resources available to her through her position as a bail bonds person to try to find any remaining family she might have and eventually, her tireless research led her to a half-brother, David Nolan, who resided in the small town of Storybrooke, Maine and served as the town Sheriff. She'd taken a step out of her comfort zone to reach out and after a few weeks of telephone conversations, David and his wife, Mary Margaret, convinced Emma to come visit them.

Initially, Emma had planned for just a brief weekend trip but as soon as she arrived in the quirky little seaside town, she found her insatiable curiosity piqued. By the end of the second day, she'd felt so comfortable and so at home here that she made the decision to relocate to Storybrooke - and that was when the fun began. David had hired her on as a deputy, giving her plenty of access to the town records to continue her research, understanding her need to fill in the gaps of her heritage. Absolutely nothing had prepared her for the shock of discovering the town's biggest secret until she'd barged in on a drunk and disorderly call down at the Rabbit Hole and stumbled upon a man levitating above the bar, cheerfully showering the bartender and a few fellow patrons with what smelled like bourbon.

Stranger yet, Emma had sensed an odd energy even before stepping into the tavern. There was some sort of a connection she'd experienced with the levitating drunkard and he'd instantly dropped to the floor in a heavily-sauced heap the moment she'd raised her hand toward him. She hadn't known what it was back then, but it had been the moment she discovered her first hint that she was a witch. And not just any witch - she'd been born with potential not seen before in Storybrooke - only she didn't know it yet.

She hadn't even known how to address the incident with David until he'd burst out in a fit of laughter. Having spent a lifetime in Storybrooke, he'd already figured out what his younger sister was skirting around. He confirmed for her that while neither he nor his wife possessed any otherworldly abilities (aside from his charming personality), the town was indeed was ripe with magic. Magic had been that unusual energy she'd sensed enveloping her and he was certain that if she could feel it, she could wield it, and if that was indeed the case, she needed to find a tutor quickly. He'd seen far too many citizens here who'd been driven mad by powers they couldn't fully harness or control.

And oh boy, did she ever have a lot to learn!

She had a flurry of thoughts crossing her mind as she eased her battered old Volkswagen Beetle to the curb outside of the Sheriff station. It had just now dawned on her that today marked exactly eight months since she'd first communicated with her long-lost brother and found her life turned entirely upside down, although certainly for the better. She'd given up a lonely life of chasing bail jumpers in Boston in favor of this small town's laid back lifestyle - well, mostly laid back.

She recalled arriving here expecting to deal with minor little crimes like tractor tipping, petty larceny and the occasional pickpocket fleecing the tourists visiting their picturesque seaside haven, but it certainly wasn't what she'd found. Even though David hadn't been particularly forthcoming about the town's supernatural side, Emma had gotten used to arresting people for placing evil spells on their neighbors to make their crops fail or hexing their dog for growling at them. It was now just part of her day to day routine and she kept trying to immerse herself into magical education to hone the skills she'd recently discovered.

David had encouraged her to talk to Storybrooke's Mayor, Regina Mills, who was well-known to be a practitioner of Wiccan arts. Her sister, Zelena, was also a seasoned witch and the two of them had developed a powerful coven that at one time had included several members Emma hadn't even realized practiced witchcraft like the town's pawn shop owner, a local waitress, and one of the elementary school teachers. Regina had initially been reluctant to bring Emma into their fold due to her inexperience, but upon learning she was David's sister, she'd caved and agreed to help Emma. Emma had been studying under Regina and Zelena's tutelage for nearly six months now which almost seemed unbelievable. Her brain was filled with Latin words and phrases that formed the simple spells she'd practiced and she'd helped brew a few potions, almost grateful that she didn't know what some of the unsavory ingredients actually were.

She smiled to herself as she clambered out of her car, pinning her deputy badge to the waistband of her jet black twill pants. She felt she was adapting fairly well to her new reality and certainly believed that she was more confident today than she'd been eight months ago, and now it was time to start a new workday. She raised the rear hem of her crimson leather jacket to tuck her service weapon into the holster she wore at the small of her back, hearing the echo of David's repeated complaints and suggestions that she switch to a shoulder or hip holster. She just found this style more comfortable as it allowed her to easily conceal her weapon beneath her nearly ever-present leather jacket, the garment she wore as though it were some sort of magical armor even long before she'd set foot in Storybrooke.

She unconsciously wrapped a stray tendril of blonde hair around her index finger, slipping the wayward strands behind her ear as she pushed open the front door of the station and strolled inside. Unsurprisingly, early bird David was already present, chatting with his other deputy, Graham Humbert. From what she could garner walking in on the conversation, they were discussing one of the town's most bewitching potions - the virtually irresistible brew that Granny served at her namesake diner. By the level of _chipper_ she was encountering in the squad room, and from the aroma wafting from the takeout cups in hand, she knew they'd both already partaken of Granny's intoxicating elixir, which made her a little jealous that she'd have to settle for the inferior substance found in the station's break room that passed for coffee.

"Good morning, Emma," David greeted her. "I was wondering if you were going to make it in on time this morning. You got home pretty late last night…" She knew David wanted to ask if she'd had a date, but he held his tongue. It was no surprise that he and Mary Margaret had been encouraging her to go on a few dates, but considering that the other person present had been the other half of a disastrous evening a few weeks back, she was glad he didn't ask. That single dinner date with Graham had not gone well, but they'd chosen to put it behind them so they could remain amicably working together.

As much as she'd appreciated David and Mary Margaret's offer to rent out the upstairs bedroom of their loft, the longer she stayed, the more she thought it might be time to start searching for a place of her own. She'd inevitably wear out her welcome and there was definitely a privacy issue should she ever want to bring a date home. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing you wanted your brother knowing - or especially hearing…

"I'm sorry if I woke you up when I came in last night," she replied as she made her way across the squad room to her desk against the far wall. She took a precursory glance at the stack of files awaiting her before shrugging off her jacket and hanging it on the back of her chair. "Had a late night lesson with the Evil Queen and I stuck around the vault to read up on spell casting."

"You know, you really should stop calling Regina, the _Evil Queen_ ," David chided her, trying to keep a straight face until he was betrayed by a chuckle he couldn't hold back. Emma certainly wasn't the only person in town who used the nickname in reference to the town's mayor, but Emma was one of the more vocal - probably the only one who'd ever said it to Regina's face and lived to talk about it. "I know she's a bossy pain in the ass, but she's still trying to help you develop your magic."

"I know, I know," she assured her brother as she dropped onto her chair. "Some days, I could do without her condescending attitude though. I know she's trying to help, David, but there are times when she treats me as though I'm beneath her and it really irks me. Same goes for the Wicked Witch…"

"The Mills family has been running this town for decades," Graham chimed in. "They've been practicing magic since childhood, so it's probably best to just give them a break. They wouldn't have agreed to accept you into the coven if they didn't believe you had potential."

"Eh, I'm not worried about them throwing me out over nicknames. They call each other far worse and you should hear some of the things they call me," Emma said, dismissing any worry the two men had. "Usually it's The Prodigal or sometimes just Lucky Bitch. It's all in good fun."

"Yeah, well anyway, it's time for the two of you to get to work," David stated as he held up two slips of paper in his right hand. "Which of you wants to take the disorderly conduct call and which of you wants to take the vandalism call from the middle school?"

"Such excitement," Emma groaned. "I'll flip you for it, Humbert…"

"Oh yeah, when they're equally bad, does it really matter?" Graham complained.

"You two decide quickly or I delegate," David insisted. "I'm going to be in my office going over last week's reports. Anything either of you would like to amend before I review them?" Emma and Graham each shook their head and began to debate which investigation would be the lesser one while David rolled his eyes at his deputies. He left them to their argument as he headed for the relative peace and quiet of his office.

—-

In the end, Emma wound up following up on the disorderly conduct call from the town harbormaster. David had insisted that she take the Sheriff cruiser instead of her own beat up Bug so that her arrival would look as official as possible since the complaint involved a ship full of merchant sailors from out of town. She hadn't bothered with the lights or siren as the reported incident wasn't currently in progress, having occurred earlier that morning. The harbormaster had encountered a drunken sailor tossing barrels and something described in the complaint as floatation devices into the bay. She wasn't quite sure what these _floatation devices_ might be, but she was certainly curious.

Her earlier phone call to the harbormaster's shack had gone unanswered so she decided to head down to the marina and pay a visit to the vessel the unruly sailor had arrived on - an ancient-looking wooden merchant ship moored at the marina. She parked the cruiser at the harbor entrance, a few hundred yards from the gangplank and as she climbed out of the vehicle, she couldn't shake the thought that the boat looked suspiciously akin to a pirate ship straight off of a Hollywood film set. While it might not have been uncommon for Storybrooke to attract some eclectic tourists, she wasn't entirely convinced that the crew milling around the marina were actually merchants.

The vessel's soaring masts towered above everything else in the harbor, maybe even over most of the buildings in town. It was also buzzing with activity this morning as crew members were busy loading and unloading cargo, some hoisting crates and barrels from pier to deck with a system of ropes and pulleys while others hefted merchandise up and down the gangplank. Emma made certain that her badge was prominently visible as she strolled furtively towards the gangplank and asked the first person she encountered in her path who was in charge. The uninterested and seemingly annoyed man stabbed a filthy finger at the top of the gangplank and replied that she needed to ask for the captain.

Emma nodded and thanked him before forging her way up to the ship's deck while the man she'd so rudely interrupted resumed his tasks. She took a tentative step onto the plank decking and spied a mousy little man clad in a corduroy overcoat that had definitely seen better days and who sported a shapeless red knit cap atop his head. The man didn't appear to have noticed her arrival so Emma called out in attempt to garner his attention.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for the captain. Could you tell me where to find him?" When it didn't appear that he'd heard her query, Emma repeated her request a smidge louder. "Pardon me - where might I find the captain?"

"Oh, sorry, sorry," the man apologized profusely as he spun around to face the unexpected guest. "Cap'n doesn't like when we fall behind schedule."

"So he's here?"

"Who's here?" the befuddled man asked her, his eyebrows knitted in confusion.

"Your captain," she clarified, shaking her head in disbelief. "Is he here?"

"Oh, yes. Yes. He's in his quarters."

"Alright then, how might I find the captain's quarters?" she pressed, growing rapidly frustrated with the lack of cooperation she was getting.

"Oh, the captain wouldn't like a stranger poking about his ship. I'll go fetch him. Please - wait here, miss…"

"Deputy," Emma corrected him as he scurried across the deck, uncertain of whether he'd even heard her. She didn't have much experience with ships, especially not with relics like this one but she had to admit that there was a certain beauty to the expanse of soaring masts and billowing sails. Well, sails that would have been billowing were they not lashed down while in port. She'd become so entranced that she failed to notice the figure wordlessly approaching her until he spoke.

"Welcome aboard the Jolly Roger, Love," a velvety, deep voice with a hint of a British accent greeted her, rendering her momentarily speechless as she turned in the direction the voice had originated and caught her first glimpse of the captain. The timbre of his voice should have served as warning but instead, did nothing to prepare her for the appearance of the man who stood before her. He was probably a hair shy of six foot tall but it wasn't his height that gave off an imposing impression, rather his all-black attire. Slim, black denim trousers. Polished black leather boots with a hint of a silver cap at the toe. A jet black oxford style shirt topped with a three button black leather vest. And over the entire ensemble, he sported a black leather jacket that glistened with a hint of salt spray and fell just past his hips.

Her gaze darted upward to get captured by a pair of sparking, sapphire blue eyes beneath a fringe of wind-tossed dark, chestnut brown hair. A broad smile stretched across his lips and one eyebrow inched upward in amusement as he soaked in her perusal of him.

"See something you like, Love?" he teased, lip curling into a lopsided smirk as he relished the attention. "My first mate, Mr. Smee, advised me that there was a lovely lass asking for the captain, and as I've never been one to keep a beautiful woman waiting, you now have my full and prompt audience. How may I be of assistance, M'lady?"

The words rolled off his tongue so smoothly that Emma nearly forgot why she was here, but after a few stunned seconds, her sensible self clawed her way to the surface and reminded her that now wasn't the time to get lost in a handsome face. She had work to do. "It's Deputy," she corrected him. "Deputy Emma Swan of the Storybrooke Sheriff department. You're the captain of this boat?"

"The proper term would be _ship_ ," he countered, visibly cringing at the injustice done to his vessel. "And aye, I am Captain Killian Jones." He extended his right hand in greeting to shake hers. She scarcely noticed that he kept his left arm tucked behind his back as he switched seamlessly to a business-like tone. "Since I don't have reason to believe this is a social call, Deputy - as much as I might like it to be - how may I assist you today?" It was also his turn to surmise who he was dealing with in this pretty blonde package. She was certainly quite guarded. He'd noticed that the moment she realized he'd caught on to her visual assessment of him. She'd instantly faded into an embarrassed defensive before coming back with the steely law enforcement facade. But he'd also spied an intensity and curiosity lurking behind the warm emerald of her eyes. What a challenge it would be to find her softer side, he thought as she responded.

"Well, Captain," she began in a fully, professional composed voice, "my office received a complaint this morning from the harbormaster that someone from this ship got a little too rowdy."

"My apologies, lass," he said with an over exaggerated sigh. "One member of my crew, Mr. Parsons, imbibed himself a smidge too much of your town's finest libations. He returned to the ship too inebriated to locate the gangplank and when confronted by your harbormaster, he became perhaps a tad too belligerent and began hefting things about."

"That much I'm aware of," she reminded him with a note of sarcasm in her response. "The harbormaster reported several barrels and other assorted items being thrown into the bay. He hasn't yet formally reported any damages…"

"It isn't likely that he shall," Captain Jones replied with a flat dismissal of her concerns. "I've paid him a tidy sum already to cover the damages and the offender, Mr. Parsons, has been confined to the brig as punishment."

"May I speak to Mr. Parsons?" Emma queried, a tad miffed that the matter appeared to have been resolved long before she'd arrived. She was supposed to be representing the law here, not this cocky visiting ship's captain. "I would like to speak to both him and the harbormaster before I declare this matter closed or decide that additional charges might still apply."

"You are more than welcome to speak to him once he sobers up," the captain assured her.

"Good. You aren't planning on leaving port any time soon, are you?"

"No, Deputy. We'll be here for the remainder of this week as we're awaiting supplies yet to arrive from out of town."

"Good," she repeated. "I'll be back later this afternoon."

"I shall eagerly await your return," he responded with a salacious grin. "It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Deputy Swan." Emma rolled her eyes as he made his exit by giving her a sweeping mock bow. Was this guy actually for real? At this point, she wasn't even certain what to put in her report aside from the fact that the matter appeared to be closed - at least until she spoke to the harbormaster.

But there was something else nagging at her subconscious as she descended the gangplank to the dock and Emma wasn't sure how she should feel about it. The encounter with Captain Jones had her rethinking her actions from last night and silently wondering if perhaps she might have gone a bit too far… She had to push that out of her mind immediately though because there was no chance the two could be connected…

No chance at all…


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: The witchcraft portrayed in this story is entirely fictional and is not intended to be an accurate portrayal of Wiccan practices. I've adapted the depiction of magic and spells strictly to fit this narrative. Also, please forgive me if the Latin phrases presented are a little off. I tried my best to ensure the correct translation of the phrases in the spell presented but I'm a little rusty.

_The Previous Evening_

Emma had, from her first visit with the Mills sisters, found it a tad morbid that their coven gatherings were held in a vault deep beneath the crypt of their parents' mausoleum. She could still recall Regina leading her down this path through the fog-obscured graveyard - when it appeared as though Emma was about to be on the receiving end of a very bad practical joke. She'd kept a tight grip on her service weapon as she'd followed the mayor down a carved stone stairway until they reached the faintly illuminated room hidden below.

After several months of meetings here, visiting for various lessons or to simply bear witness the Wiccan rituals, Emma was growing accustomed to the eerie surroundings. There was always a hint of unease in the pit of her stomach when she descended below the land of the dead but it just didn't nauseate her as much now as it used to.

Tonight, she'd trekked through the cemetery after work, running just a little late for the 8pm conjuring practice session that Zelena had planned. Emma was heading into the night a little half-heartedly after nagging memories plagued her all day. Memories that continued to haunt her as she descended deeper into the earth. Sure, making a ball of flames appear out of the palm of your hand was cool and all, but it truly wasn't where Emma's thoughts lay tonight.

She allowed herself to slink down the steps, hoping she'd arrived unnoticed, but as she turned the corner at the vault's entrance, she was met by Regina's disdainful glare.

"You're late, Miss Swan," was the greeting that spewed from the Mayor's tongue.

"Sorry," Emma stammered. "I had some paperwork to finish up before I could leave the office but I got here as quickly as I could." It was mostly a lie, but Regina didn't need to know that she'd actually been contemplating not even showing up tonight.

"Well, we were just about to don our robes. Hurry up and join us in the circle," Regina instructed as she thrust a jet black, hooded brocade robe into Emma's hands. The student accepted the garment from her instructor with a nod of thanks while quickly shedding her crimson leather jacket. She tossed her jacket haphazardly over a wooden armchair as she tugged the robe over her shoulders before proceeding into the main chamber. She was immediately reminded how claustrophobic the vault could be when their entire coven was present.

Theirs was currently a coven of five. As Emma saw it, there was one member for each point of the pentacle inlaid within the marble circle that adorned the vault's floor. The Mills sisters were, by far, the most active and the most powerful practitioners of the group, but they were joined by Ruby Lucas, the waitress at Granny's diner - whom Emma suspected might have a few other hidden powers, and Ingrid, an older witch of the prior generation whose methods and ideals quite often clashed with the Mills sisters. Ingrid was the last remaining member of the original coven, having practiced alongside Regina and Zelena's late mother, Cora, but that was all Emma knew. No one really talked about the old guard much, but Emma knew they'd been a formidable group of sorceresses.

Emma made her way into formation as Regina's flame-haired older sister, Zelena, lit the candles positioned within the circle with a mere flick of the ebony wand clutched in her hand. Emma found some of the rituals a bit unnerving, but like being twenty feet beneath a tomb, she was growing used to the feeling. Her mind was just wandering a bit more tonight than normal.

Today had been an auspicious anniversary for her and the only reason she'd even made the decision to come was that she absolutely didn't want to be sitting around the loft with her overly-positive sister-in-law. She'd decided that a coven gathering in the crypt was preferable to drowning her sorrows down at the Rabbit Hole - and a lot less expensive. Plus, the vault gave her access to collections of books and scrolls that might help her find something useful should she be given permission to search them. She just needed something to keep herself distracted for a little while. Something to prevent her from falling back into any of her old, desolate traps - because tonight was the anniversary of the day she'd had her heart crushed into a million pieces - a story she'd not yet shared with anyone here in Storybrooke.

That heartbreak had become the catalyst that really kicked off her quest to discover her family and the history her mother had hidden from her. She'd believed that solving her own personal mysteries would be the best way to heal after being abandoned by the man she'd thought she'd loved - the man she'd given her heart and soul to. When things had gotten too difficult, he'd bolted, never even saying goodbye and even after a decade, it still stung. His betrayal hurt as deeply as losing her beloved mother only months before he'd run away - and as bitterly as the miscarriage she'd suffered alone. All combined together in such a short amount of time had left her feeling utterly alone. She was now striving to push beyond those losses, determined to reconnect with the family she still had, and then maybe, just maybe, she could find someone to help mend her broken heart. And if magic could help her fill those voids, she was determined to try.

But at this moment in time, she knew she was simply going through the motions as she recited her ritual incantations and completed the mundane tasks asked of her. It wasn't hard for anyone else to see her lack of conviction either. Her heart simply wasn't in it, and as her lackluster attitude caught Zelena's attention, her mentor decided to cut the evening's lessons short rather than keep going with an inattentive student.

"How about we pick things up again on Friday?" Emma heard Zelena ask as the redhead brushed back her hood. Emma heard what she was saying but didn't completely comprehend the words.

"Huh?" Emma replied, startled by the query that pulled her back from her reminiscing.

"I was asking if we should pick this up again on Friday," Zelena repeated with a hint of irritation in her voice. "Weren't you listening to anything I said tonight?"

"Sorry… I'm a little distracted tonight and I guess I'm not feeling particularly well…," Emma fibbed in a feeble attempt to cover her obvious disconnect.

"Why don't you head home and get some rest then?" Regina suggested. "Friday's full moon will allow us to try out some new spells too."

"Actually, if you don't mind, Regina, I'd like to take a look through some of the potion books to see if I can locate a remedy for this lingering tiredness I've been experiencing. Would you mind?"

Regina thought about the idea for a moment, but granted permission. "Just stick to the newer potion books on the shelf under the mirror. Most of those ones are either already written in English or have already been translated from the original text. Most of the older books are written in Latin, Greek, Elvish - you get the idea? Your study of ancient languages hasn't advanced enough for proper translation yet so stick to the ones you can read, okay? Oh, and lock up when you leave."

"I can do that," Emma smiled graciously. "And I promise I won't stay too long, and I'll be sure to clean up and lock everything away."

"See that you do, Miss Swan," Regina stated as she undid the clasp on her robe and allowed the garment to slide off of her shoulders. She draped the robe over her forearm as she gathered her belongings from the desktop beside her apothecary cabinet. "Have a good evening, Deputy."

"Good night, your Highness," Emma quipped as Regina ascended the stairway towards the crypt above. Zelena smirked at the nickname as she followed her sister out of the vault and soon, both Ruby and Ingrid made their exit as well, leaving Emma alone in the creepy confines.

Hearing only the tap of her own footsteps echoing off of the slate floor, Emma made her way over to the towering shelves, teeming with an expansive collection of books ranging from spellbooks to recipe books to a weathered, and likely very dated, set of encyclopedias. She quickly figured out the filing system that Regina utilized and began scanning for a specific volume. Her eyes darted back and forth across the third shelf up from the bottom trying to find a book that Zelena had shown her a few weeks earlier when they'd practiced a few basic potions. She remembered looking at a sleeping potion, a memory potion and even one that was rumored to improve the mood of even the crankiest Storybrooke resident, but Emma wasn't actually interested in potions right now.

While Zelena had been busy preparing the ingredients for one of the potions, Emma had flipped through a few of the yellowed vellum pages, glancing over random potion recipes and spells handwritten in flowing Latin. She was still learning the basics of the language, understanding a few words and phrases that appeared frequently. Words that were unfamiliar were easily translated with an app on her iPhone, although she did know that just having the translation of the words didn't always help as figuring out the grammar could be awkward. She was determined to try anyway.

She located the correct, ornately decorated spine and carefully lifted the gilded book from the shelf, carrying it to the podium the Mills sisters had installed in the center of the vault, directly beneath the chandelier - one of the few nods to modern conveniences down here (although Emma had yet to figure out exactly where the electricity came from as there were no visible power lines around the mausoleum). She took extreme care in opening the cover, turning the pages gently as she sought the specific spell she'd seen before.

Nervousness began to overcome her, causing her to repeatedly glance back toward the stairs as she flipped through the ancient pages. She feared that someone might return to interrupt her and discover that she was perusing books that weren't in the officially-approved collections. She was taking a huge risk that could destroy the trust she'd built within the coven but right now, she had a singular focus.

It took a few minutes in the dimly lit vault to locate the spell she wanted but once she did, she picked up the crystal candlestick with its nearly fully melted ruby red taper from atop the desk and brought it closer to the podium to get a better view as her fingertip dusted across the flowing script. Her excitement and anxiety both increased exponentially as she stared at the spell she hoped might change her life.

Her brain immediately began translating the Latin text, beginning with the instructions preceding the spell itself. _Succensa -_ set alight. _Sapiens -_ sage. _Roris marini -_ rosemary. She recognized the herbs and knew she needed to light them on fire as the smoke from burning them would cleanse the air prior to her reciting the incantation. She retrieved sprigs of both herbs from the apothecary cabinet and dropped them into a charred marble bowl then ignited them with the flame from the candle.

As the fragrant herbs burned, filling the small, subterranean room with their aroma, Emma continued translating the remaining text as well as she could. _Verus amor -_ true love. That was her goal - to find her own true love and fill the void within her heart that she'd struggled with for so many years. Since the moment she'd stumbled across this spell, she'd been determined to cast it when the time was right. She had to. Why else would she have been gifted with these supernatural abilities if it wasn't meant to bring her some semblance of happiness? She wanted the type of love that her brother shared with Mary Margaret - that close companionship that just wasn't going to be found in friendship or familial relationships. She just wanted to be loved and have someone to love in return.

Alone in the vault, she began to recite the Latin phrases from the page.

_Verus amor occurant -_ encounter true love.

_Verus amor reveles -_ discover true love.

Those phrases she translated easily, but there were others she wasn't as certain of.

_Verus amor agnocis._ She didn't know what agnocis meant, but in the context of the words she understood, it had to be another part of finding true love, which led into the last phrase - _Confirmare verus amor -_ confirm true love.

Once completed, she sealed the spell by pricking the tip of her finger with a needle and allowing three minute drops of her blood to fall atop the smoldering herbs. One for her, one for the love she sought and the third to unite them. Now, all she had to do was wait to see if it all worked - and get everything cleaned up, put away and locked up before anyone became suspicious.


	3. Chapter 3

Well, Emma's disorderly conduct case could officially be considered closed. After her conversation with Captain Jones, she'd managed to track down the harbormaster and needed to speak only briefly with him to verify that the captain had already settled the matter, just as he'd advised. Reparations had been made for the harbormaster's losses and he'd received a sincere apology from the captain himself so he no longer wished to pursue charges against the drunken Mr. Parsons, even if the sailor had made quite a mess of things last night.

She probably should have called David to ensure that Mr. Parsons wouldn't be facing any additional charges from the town, but in truth, she didn't want to bother with it. She simply didn't feel that it would be worth the effort. She probably should arrest the sailor and let him spend the night in the station's holding cell but since he was already confined to (and sobering up in) his own ship's brig, it seemed pointless to take him from one form of custody into another - and she definitely didn't want to take any chances of having to clean vomit out of the cruiser.

As far as Emma was concerned, the matter was closed. It was simply useless to push this any further, especially when a certain handsome, modern-day pirate captain would probably just show up and bail out his crew member anyway. She empowered herself to make the decision to inform Captain Jones that all charges against his crewman had been dropped and that Mr. Parsons was free to go...wherever it was that merchant sailors went off to.

Despite her eagerness to put this case behind her, Emma was still harboring a lingering interest in the enigmatic Captain Killian Jones. As smug as he was articulate, he'd captured her attention with his boyish charm. He was perhaps a tad overconfident and maybe even a little bit vain, but Emma's personal superpower sensed no deception from Captain Jones. She'd always felt that she had a sixth sense when it came to reading people (and maybe it had something to do with her newfound magic), but she'd simply had a knack for knowing when people weren't being truthful with her. Granted, her power wasn't always infallible, but only when she let her heart cloud her head - and only one person had ever completely evaded her powers. And even that was probably because she let him…

She figure she owed David at least a quick text message to inform him that the case was closed and she'd be back to the station shortly, needing only to visit the Jolly Roger to give an official " _you're off the hook for now, but don't get caught screwing up in my town again_ " speech to Captain Jones and crew. She'd have everything wrapped up nicely and would be back at her desk to type up her report long before Graham returned from his vandalism case. No way his case was going to be as easy to put away as this one.

When she finally clambered back out of the cruiser, deciding she was now fully mentally prepared to go toe to toe with Captain Jones and his piercing blue eyes, she immediately noticed that the sea breeze had picked up since she'd spoken to the harbormaster just a few minutes ago. Her lip curled into a frown as she dug through her pockets to see if she could locate anything she could use to secure her unruly blonde locks. Long hair and wind simply didn't mix and she absolutely did not want to be spitting strands of hair out of her mouth while trying to look like a professional Sheriff's deputy in front of a ship full of sailors - especially not the one she was finding herself attracted to. Her fingertips finally found a matte black hair elastic tucked inside a nearly empty pack of wintergreen chewing gum. She extracted the hair tie, shoved the gum back into her jeans pocket and pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail all while resetting her composure.

In her battle to tame her wild locks, she'd barely noticed that another car had joined hers on the harbor front. There wasn't anything particularly special about the car - it was just a nondescript black sedan parked maybe fifty yards from her. Nothing flashy. But there was something that drew her attention away from the Jolly Roger and towards that common sedan. It took her a moment to realize that it wasn't really the vehicle she was drawn to, but rather its driver. It had everything to do with the tall, sandy-haired man sporting a charcoal grey pinstripe suit who had climbed out and was now standing next to that black sedan. Something was vaguely familiar about his build and his stance, but it wasn't from anyone she knew in Storybrooke. The moment he turned his head so she could make out his profile, she knew - an old friend, er… boyfriend? Someone from back in Boston whom she'd not seen or spoken to in a couple of years but still recognized immediately.

"Walsh?" she called out to her former acquaintance whose back was still to her. "Walsh Gibbons? Is that you?"

The man turned toward her to see Emma standing beside the sheriff's cruiser smiling broadly at him. He squinted for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the glare but reciprocated the welcoming expression as he recognized the familiar red leather garment and long, golden hair of his former flame.

"Emma Swan. I heard that you'd moved up here to Storybrooke but I wasn't sure until just now."

"Well, it's been what - two years since we last spoke?" Emma queried with a grin as she closed the door on the cruiser and took a few steps toward Gibbons.

"Something like that, I guess," he replied with a shrug, closing the distance between them with several long strides. "Joined the Sheriff's Department, I see…"

"Had to earn an honest wage somehow," she chuckled. "What on Earth brings you up this way?" She recalled from their brief relationship that he owned some sort of import-export business back in Boston. Storybrooke seemed a bit off of the beaten path for that line of work. "This is hardly the kind of place that would suit your business."

"You might be surprised," Walsh countered. "Storybrooke is a wonderful source for some of the more eclectic finds. You have some very unique merchandise here in your little town. I'm actually here checking on a shipment that's arriving for a client of mine. I was just on my way to check with the harbormaster to see if the ship it's coming in on has arrived yet."

"Well, unless that ship is the Jolly Roger, it's not here yet. That's the only one in port," she informed him with a nod towards the ship docked a few hundred yards away. "And at least if your cargo was delayed, it was spared from possibly ending up in the bay…"

"I'd certainly hope so…," he responded nervously, a scowl scrunching his brow as he contemplated her statement. "Is there something I should know…?"

"Sorry… nothing earth shattering," she laughed. "Just a drunken sailor who went on a rampage and threw a bunch of stuff into the harbor. A few barrels, a couple of buoys and a whole lot of rum apparently. Nothing really valuable and the harbormaster was already reimbursed for his losses."

"Certainly good to know that the ship I'm awaiting has yet to arrive in port. Doesn't seem that anything of extreme value was lost," he commented, trying to disguise his previous unease over her off-hand statement, although he doubted Emma would grasp the actual of the value of the package he was awaiting. At least if she had sensed his prior discomfort, she made no mention of it, nor did she let it show.

"Well, I was just on my way over to that ship to inform the captain that his crewman won't be facing any official charges," she explained. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I think I'd better get back to work before my brother starts calling and telling me to get my ass back to the station."

"Then, by all means, don't let me keep you from your duties, Deputy," he said, flashing a huge smile that brought memories flooding back as to why she'd been drawn to him in the first place. He was still just as charming as ever and she found herself feeling the little flutter of butterflies in her stomach again. She also couldn't help but let her mind drift back to the spell she'd cast last night. Was it possible that she might have already met her destined love but simply hadn't recognized it before?

"It was really great to see you, Walsh," she grinned, suddenly gushing like a silly schoolgirl. "Maybe our paths will cross again… How long will you be in town?"

"I suppose that depends on how soon my shipment arrives, but I'd already planned to spend a couple of days here. I have a room reserved at Granny's bed and breakfast and I would definitely love to see you again, so, if I'm not being too forward, how about dinner? I saw what looked like a nice little Italian place in town… Would you join me?"

"Uh…," she hesitated a moment, her head swirling with potential answers as she found herself struggling with a bout of insecurity over being asked out by a handsome former flame, albeit a short-lived flame. Should she say yes? Should she decline? "You know what… Sure - why not? Unless there are riots in the streets tonight, I'll be happy to join you, but we're not calling this a date, okay?"

"Okay, just a nice dinner with an old friend. How's 8 o'clock sound? I can pick you up…"

"I'm off at 6 so 8 is fine, but I live a block away from Tony's restaurant. How about I just meet you there?"

"Sounds good. I'll see you tonight then, Emma."

"See you tonight," she repeated as she sensed a slight flush crossing her cheeks while she watched Walsh Gibbons stroll towards the harbormaster's shack. She knew she needed to snap out of this and regain her composure so she could get back to business, but she wanted to revel in this feeling for a minute or two.

_Deputy_ _mode_ , _Emma_ , she reminded herself. She still had a ship's captain to speak to and heaven only knew what else David was going to throw at her today… Of course, right now, her duty meant heading from having this little one on one with a good looking, charming man to conducting a professional debriefing with another suave, attractive man. Could be worse…

* * *

With a trace of redness (that she intended to blame on the sun if asked) still visible on her face, Emma scaled the gangplank, hoping that the blush wouldn't be too obvious to a ship full of sailors. She stepped onto the deck under the watchful scrutiny of several crew members who appeared less than pleased to see the deputy aboard their ship again, although she sensed that there were likely just as many leering stares as disapproving ones but she didn't have time to care. That wasn't pertinent to her job.

She spotted the familiar red knit cap of the first mate, Mr. Smee, and shouted the man's name in an attempt to garner his attention. "Mr. Smee - is your captain free?" she asked once the easily sidetracked man acknowledged her presence.

"The captain, ma'am?"

"Yes, I have some new information to pass on to him relating to Mr. Parsons' case."

"Oh, yes, yes. He'll be quite pleased to see you, Miz… Swan, was it? He's below desk overseeing the inventory since some of the stores came up a bit short this week. Cap'n wanted to make sure there were no sticky fingers… You know… Let me go fetch him…"

"Thank you, Mr. Smee," Emma replied with an exhausted sigh after receiving far more information than was necessary.

"Of course. Just stick around here if you would, please."

Emma nodded her confirmation and thankfully, her wait was brief as she spied Captain Jones emerging from beneath a hatch on the opposite side of the deck from where she stood. The starboard side maybe? She wasn't particularly versed in nautical terms and never could remember whether starboard was right or left but this seemed an awkward time for her brain to tease her with nautical words. Did her head really want to make her appear a fool in front of a handsome sailor by tempting her to use the wrong word or phrase?

As he made his way topside, she noticed that Captain Jones had shed his outer layer of black leather but it really wasn't his lack of a jacket that captured her attention - rather it was his apparent lack of a visible hand at the end of his left arm. Her eyes were drawn to a glint of steel shining in the late morning sunlight and even though she tried not to stare, she couldn't stop herself from trying to identify whatever was in place of normal flesh and bone. What the hell was it?

"Deputy Swan," the captain addressed her from across the deck. "I knew you'd be returning expeditiously." The bastard flashed a self-assured grin at her while crossing the deck to meet her by the gangplank. She almost expected him to conceal his abnormal arm from her view again, but he didn't, nor did he react to her obvious interest. "Am I to surmise that matters have now been settled?"

"I do believe that you were quite certain of that earlier, weren't you, Captain?" She responded to his brash self-confidence with a hint of irritation in her voice. She'd never really been the type to appreciate someone being so overly certain of an outcome before she'd been given chance to deliver her conclusions.

"Well, I pride myself on resolving situations before the reach a problematic stage. It can be quite a necessity while at sea for long periods of time on a vessel such as this," he explained with a confident smirk. "But I digress… I was informed that you had some news for me?"

"As you've already figured out by now, since you've settled the damages with the harbormaster, he's chosen not to press charges against Mr. Parsons. Don't suppose he's sobered up yet?"

"Last my security officer checked on him, he was still soundly sleeping it off."

"Well, you can inform him when he's conscious that he's free to go, but he'd better stay out of trouble or there will be charges filed by my department."

"You needn't worry about Mr. Parsons inciting any more ruckus, Deputy Swan," Captain Jones assured her. "He's to be confined to quarters for the duration of our stay in this port and will be assigned additional duties once we set sail. We may look like a bunch of rowdy pirates to the untrained eye, but I run a tight ship here. Mr. Parsons' actions did not provide a proper representation of my crew."

"I certainly hope not, Captain, or I'll run the lot of you out of my harbor," she threatened, although it was mostly posturing as she didn't even know if she had the legal authority to do so.

"I will keep that in mind," he smirked, giving a little nod of his head as he arched an eyebrow, body language speaking loudly that he knew she was bluffing but that he was enjoying the challenge. He'd also decided it was time to comment on her drifting gaze that kept returning to his missing left hand. "I've noticed that your attention keeps being drawn to my prosthetic. Is there something that you would like to ask me, Deputy? There's no secret here…"

Emma's face immediately flushed crimson again as her rudeness in staring at his disabled limb was revealed. "I'm sorry, I noticed it earlier when you came up out of the hatch and I was trying to figure out what it was, which I now can see is a hook… I'm sure there's a story behind it…" She was genuinely curious even if part of her was screaming at her to bolt down the gangplank and not look back.

"Unfortunate result of a run in with an angry crocodile years back," he replied, reciting the tale with little emotion. "He took my hand, but he made a very nice pair of boots."

"Sorry, I shouldn't have…"

"It's fine, Love. It was a long time ago and I've long since come to terms, although one does have to be quite cautious when scratching an itch…" His warm smile eased some of her embarrassment. Clearly, he'd been in this situation before, but she was still feeling like an ass.

"Can I ask - why a hook?"

Jones laughed heartily at the query. "I do have a proper prosthetic hand, but when shipboard, a hook is far more functional. It serves many purposes."

"I suppose that makes you Captain Hook then, doesn't it?" she teased, instantly regretting the quip when he groaned in annoyance - until she realized he was taunting her right back.

"That would be my more _colorful_ moniker, Deputy, but Killian will suffice. Now, since we've put all of these legal formalities behind us, I would like to offer a personal gesture of goodwill to recompense the time you've spent contending with this petty matter. I would be honored if you'd join me for dinner this evening."

Emma blinked in momentary disbelief. Had this handsome, blue-eyed devil just asked her out? And just minutes after Walsh had done the same? More than three weeks without a date and suddenly she casts a single spell and she has too incredibly good looking men both inviting her to dinner?

_Oh - there was that_. She'd already agreed to dinner with Walsh…

"Captain Jones… Killian, as much as I appreciate the offer, I actually already have plans for tonight…"

"Perhaps another evening then?" he pressed. She could hear the disappointment in his voice, but there was still a hopeful tone that she'd agree to his offer. "Perhaps another night would better suit your schedule?"

"You know, I'm not sure how appropriate this is, but sure - why not?" She shoved her right hand into the inside pocket of her jacket and fished out a slightly bent and lint-covered business card that contained both her Sheriff's Department phone number as well as her personal cell number. "Here," she began as she passed the card to him, "I'll check my schedule and we can plan for another night. Call me tomorrow at that second number on the card."

Killian accepted the card from her with a broad, genuine smile, giving her a peek at the man behind the bravado and innuendo. He glanced briefly at the card before slipping it into the breast pocket of his vest. "I will call you tomorrow then, Emma. Until then, enjoy your time with whomever the lucky party may be who'll be in your company tonight."

"I will," she responded sheepishly, cheeks flushing anew as she contemplated the sheer absurdity of this morning. Here she was, blushing like a fool, with two eligible men fawning over her. Just what the hell had she done?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone for all of the kind words and feedback that you've left on this WIP! I haven't really had time to reply to everyone but every comment has brought a smile to my face! I wasn't sure what kind of replies I was going to get introducing Walsh in the last chapter and I promise, it'll all be explained soon. But first, we have not-a-date night...

Emma had to remind herself a few times over dinner that this still wasn't a date and they were just two old friends playing catch up, but even she had to admit that it sort of felt like a date. She'd been careful in choosing her wardrobe, picking clothing that was fancy enough to suit the restaurant's atmosphere, yet casual enough to not give off mixed signals. She'd decided on a simple, black twill pencil skirt with a hemline that stopped just above her knees and paired it with a pale pink blouse and matching cardigan sweater. She probably should have worn dress shoes with her outfit but instead, she'd opted to wear her favorite knee-high black leather boots - using the rationale that as a deputy sheriff, she could get called to duty at any time so she'd rather have something comfy on her feet.

Walsh, of course, looked a bit more dapper than she did since he was still clad in the same grey pinstripe suit as earlier and Emma certainly couldn't deny that she was still attracted to him. She also remembered vividly that Walsh had been her rebound. They'd met only a few months after Neal had abandoned her and while she hadn't really been prepared for a new relationship at that time, she and Gibbons had just clicked.

They'd both been searching for something that day - he, a stolen painting belonging to a client and she, the thief who'd pilfered it and then jumped bail before revealing the whereabouts of said stolen painting. She'd captured the thief, but he'd already sold the artwork that, as far as she knew, never did turn up again. Either way, they'd found each other - and it was exactly what she'd needed at the time. She hadn't felt so comfortable talking to another human being for a long time - maybe even more than when she'd been with Neal.

Tonight, even after a couple of years, they'd settled right back into that welcome conversation, each filling the other in on what they'd been doing since their relationship had ended.

"It was such a wonderful surprise to run into you this morning, Emma," Walsh flashed a huge smile as he took a sip from his goblet of pinot noir. "I knew coming up here that there was certainly a chance that our paths would cross, but I couldn't be sure if you'd even want to see me."

"Why would you think that? We ended things amicably enough."

"I couldn't be sure…"

"So, you were going to come into my town and not even contact me?" she chuckled. "It's okay. I get it… Even though we ended things on good terms - well, at least I think we did, we were both just heading in different directions."

"And what direction are you heading in now?" he asked, innocently enough, but the question caught her off-guard.

"What do you mean?"

"Just curious, I guess. I hadn't expected you to end up working as a small town deputy and I wonder if you were able to find out some of that family history that you were always talking about back then. I mean, obviously it must be what brought you to Storybrooke."

"I'm a deputy because my brother - well, half-brother, offered me the job, so I suppose that finding him put me on this path. As for the rest, I'm still searching, but I'm making some headway."

"But no one special in your life yet?"

"Not yet. I'm still waiting on that, but I guess most of my life is still a work in progress…"

"Aren't all of ours?"

"I guess so," she snickered, finishing off the last of the chardonnay in her glass.

"Would you like another glass of wine?" Walsh offered.

"No, I'd better not. It's getting late and I've got an early shift tomorrow so I'd better go easy on the wine."

"I understand, my dear. I'm just so glad that you agreed to join me this evening. Feels like old times."

"It sure does," she agreed.

"I have to say that this does kinda remind me of that one night at Frederico's…"

"Oh my gosh, I remember that night! Are you thinking of before or after that huge rat came running through the dining room though?" she laughed heartily as she recalled the night in question.

"Definitely before," he replied, joining in the revelry. "Things went a little downhill after that…"

"You don't say…" she muttered sarcastically as his gaze caught hers. He clearly was ready to change the subject, expression growing more pensive as he took in the sparkle of her emerald eyes.

"Definitely made us rush out of there in a hurry. Anyway, Emma, I just have to say that it was wonderful to spend this time with you tonight and if I'm not being too presumptive, I was hoping that maybe we might be able to do this again another night before I head back to Boston?"

"I'd like that," she responded with a warm smile. "Maybe we can plan something later this week." She took a quick glance down at her phone resting atop the table and saw that it was nearly 10PM. _Crap, she had the 7AM shift tomorrow!_ "Unfortunately right now I really should get going. Thank you so much for a lovely dinner, Walsh."

"You are most welcome, Emma. What's the best way to get in touch with you?"

"Well, you can always drop by the station… or you could call. My cell phone number hasn't changed since we dated. You remember it?"

"I do. I'll give you a call when I have some free time tomorrow."

"Sounds good," she grinned as she stood up from the table and started to pull on her burgundy trench coat.

Walsh stood as well and helped her into the coat. "Would you like me to walk you home?"

"I'll be fine, I assure you. You do remember that as a law enforcement officer, I do carry a weapon? Also, Granny's is right around the corner. It's silly for you to go so far out of your way…"

"I don't mind," he pressed, offering deep brown puppy dog eyes pleading for her to give in.

"Seriously, I'm a big girl, Walsh, and I need to make a stop at the station before I head home anyway, but I'll definitely see you later this week."

"I do hope so," he sighed expectantly as she squeezed his left hand and leaned in to give him a quick, friendly peck on the cheek. As she did, she caught a glimpse of his expression in her peripheral vision and there was an odd look in his eyes. Was that disappointment? Had he expected something more? He was smiling as she left the restaurant so maybe she'd misread it. After all, this wasn't exactly a date…

* * *

She found it difficult to shake the awkward feeling that she'd committed some sort of faux pas that soured an otherwise wonderful evening. She dwelled on the thought all the way to the Sheriff station where she retrieved a warmer jacket from her locker, needing it after the nighttime temperature plummeted far lower than her attire was planned for. After that brief pit stop, she found herself taking an unplanned detour that led straight down to the Rabbit Hole, Storybrooke's most colorful tavern. She'd decided that she wasn't ready to return home and as long as she was walking home, a couple of drinks to cloud her overactive brain wouldn't matter.

She shrugged off her heavier, camel colored leather coat as she descended the staircase to the basement bar. There were a few regulars perched on their usual stools directly in front of the bartender, but the place wasn't really crowded - which was even more appealing to her. Emma slid into an unoccupied slot and flagged down the barkeep.

"Remy - can I get a Jack straight up?" she placed her order and immediately decided to amend it. "On second thought, make it a double."

The bartender nodded, swiftly swooping up the bottle of liquor from the shelf with his right hand while his left hand flipped over a clean glass. Placing the glass in front of her, he filled it with the amber liquor. Emma nodded her thanks and slid a twenty dollar bill across the bar as she picked up her drink, weaving her way through the dimly lit tavern toward a table in a quiet corner. She dropped her coat onto one of the chairs and then slumped her weary body into the other chair with her back to the wall. She sighed loudly as she took the first sip from her glass, grimacing at the initial bite of the alcohol as it coated her throat while simultaneously relishing the burn and its numbing effects.

She sat there alone and silent for a few minutes, absentmindedly lighting and extinguishing the candle inside the glass jar atop the table with repeated flicks and swishes of her wand. She was enjoying the solitude but before long, she sensed someone approaching her - someone who smelled strongly of leather with hints of salt water and sweet rum.

"This would hardly seem to be the type of establishment I'd expect to be patronized by such a beautiful lady…," a velvety, accented voice spoke up from above her. She immediately recognized it as belonging to the alluring Captain Killian Jones. Suddenly, this evening was developing some new complications - and intriguing ones at that…

"I suppose that would depend on your definition of _lady,_ " she responded nonchalantly, not even bothering to look up at him yet as the butterflies in her stomach had her fearing she might melt at the mere sight of him. "Not feeling particularly ladylike at the moment," she stated as she tipped her head back and swallowed the rest of the liquor in her glass in a single gulp.

"Well then, no proper gentleman likes to see a lady drinking alone." He took a step to the side and positioned himself directly in front of her just as her sight finally drifted upward, taking in every inch of his appearance until their eyes finally met. "You do look stunning this evening, Deputy Swan, and I would be utterly honored if you would allow me the pleasure of joining you…"

Rolling her eyes at his off-handed flattery, she gestured to the chair currently occupied by her leather coat. "Have a seat, Captain Jones. Sorry about the jacket there… I hadn't planned on company."

"Please - no formalities. Killian will suffice," he reminded her as he carefully hung her coat over the chair back before sitting down opposite her. He placed his own glass of spiced rum on the table top and leaned in toward her. "Would you like another?" he asked as he nodded at her empty drink.

"Sorry, Killian. I'll try to remember that… And sure - I'm not nearly drunk enough yet…"

"Rough evening, lass?" Killian asked as he waved to the bartender for a refill. It wasn't his intention to pry but her choice of words certainly left him questioning how she'd ended up here after purporting to have had plans with someone else earlier in the evening.

"No," she sighed as Remy dropped off another glass of whiskey then scurried out of their way. "Just a complicated one…" she added.

"Evenings that end in a lonely tavern generally tend to be," he agreed, swirling the rum in his glass before finishing it off. "Did your plans for this eve fall through?"

"No, they did not," she assured him, irritation evident in her voice. "I had dinner earlier tonight with an old friend - although I'm not sure why I'm even telling you this…"

"Old friend or old lover?" he continued, probably crossing the line of what a casual acquaintance should be inquiring.

"That's a little personal, don't you think?" she snapped back, annoyed that he'd even ask such a question when they scarcely knew each other.

"Apologies, love," he responded sincerely. "I was merely attempting to make conversation and I should not have been so forward."

"He was both, if you must know." She surprised him with her blunt honesty. "But we weren't on a date. We were just having dinner - and it was a nice dinner, too… We were enjoying some good food and reminiscing - at least until I was ready to leave…" She caught herself rambling and almost stopped there. Maybe it was the alcohol fueling her right now, but she chose to continue the story. "He seemed so disappointed that things ended a little abruptly because I'm supposed to be working the early shift in the morning. That probably isn't going to happen now, but anyway, it was almost like he was expecting more… You know…?"

"Expecting more of what?" Killian wasn't sure if it was wise to push for more details but she'd revealed this much of her evening's events and he was genuinely interested in learning more. Something about this woman fascinated him and he wanted nothing more than to learn everything about her.

"I don't know - like he wanted a good night kiss or something. Not something that you generally should expect at the end of a casual dinner with a friend…"

"Perhaps you misread his intentions?" Killian suggested, his first instinct to defend his potential rival to be less likely to offend her.

"Maybe," she sighed as she nervously tapped the side of her glass with her index finger as she replayed the events in her head again. "That's why I'm so conflicted about it. Walsh was a good guy, but when we dated, I was just coming off of a very bad relationship. I don't know if running into him earlier today was meant to be a second chance for us or if things will just end like they did before. I like him, I really do, but I'm not really sure if he's the love of my life or not."

"How does one know for sure if they've met the love of their life, Swan?" he queried, perhaps rhetorically as she downed half of the liquor in her second glass. "After all, you've not even had a night out with me yet."

"Are you always this presumptuous?" she half-asked and half-snorted whiskey from her nose at his brash statement. "You think _you're_ the love of my life?"

"There are certainly an abundance of ways to find out," he replied with a side-eyed smirk and an almost sinful bite down on his bottom lip. "Of course, we could start with a proper date, if you're so inclined? Would you care to join me aboard my ship tomorrow evening to dine with me?"

"Dinner on a ship full of sailors? Doesn't sound very romantic… or private…"

"I shall give my crew an evening's liberty. Only necessary personnel would remain onboard so we would have the Jolly Roger virtually to ourselves. I assure you - none of my crew would dare compromise their captain's privacy."

"Alright then, Captain - Killian. It's a date." It was probably the whiskey talking, but she wasn't nearly drunk enough to consider her decision making compromised.

"How does 7PM sound?"

"It sounds like a date," she replied with a broad, mildly inebriated smile.

"Good. Now, since it is nearly midnight, I must be heading back to my ship. Would you care to join me for the walk back?"

"Oh, my brother would love that - a strange man from out of town walking his sister home in the middle of the night? I may be a little bit tipsy, but I'm still capable of getting myself home." She gave him the same _I can take care of myself_ speech that she'd given Walsh, but as she took a moment to stare at the man seated across from her, she started second-guessing her resolve. "On second thought, you know what - my place is on the way to the harbor so yeah, we can walk it together. If anyone asks, I'm escorting you back to your ship…"

Killian let out a hearty guffaw, more than willing to play along. He couldn't quite place why he found himself so enamored of this woman yet he found himself utterly fascinated with every aspect of her - her beauty, her demeanor, her intelligence. For the first time in a long time, he sensed feelings stirring that no mere pretty face would trigger. He wanted to know everything about Emma Swan and that would certainly mean finding a method of getting through her tough exterior. He was up for the challenge and it just might take a different kind of magic than Storybrooke was used to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the week delay in posting this new chapter but between the rough week at work and an even rougher weekend personally, I barely had the time, or the energy, to write. This chapter also ran a little bit longer than I originally intended but I decided to add a brief glimpse into Emma's everyday life as a Storybrooke deputy to bridge the time between her two "dates".

Thursday morning came way too quickly. The sun hadn't even risen yet as Emma reached across her nightstand to squelch the incessant beeping of her alarm clock, wishing the whole time that there was a similar button that would cease the throbbing inside her skull. She was going to pay dearly for overindulging last night, but despite the hangover, she didn't regret everything she did last night and she was actually looking forward to the day. Well, more specifically, the night.

The past few hours had also given her a stark reminder as to why living with her brother was a bad idea. Her sister-in-law had still been awake watching television in the living room when Emma tried to slip in the door unnoticed. Mary Margaret had a huge, exuberant grin on her face, probably hoping that Emma would spill all of the lurid details of the evening - especially the part that included why she was trying to sneak into the loft after midnight, but Emma wasn't going to be quite so forthcoming. Not tonight at least.

She gave her sister-in-law an embarrassed smile and feigned a yawn as she practically darted across the room to the stairs. Mary Margaret simply nodded and whispered "good night" but Emma had little doubt that they'd have the full conversation later. The woman definitely had a way of pulling information out of people without even breaking a sweat, or her sweet demeanor. She'd probably make one hell of an interrogator if she wasn't a third grade teacher, Emma thought as she ascended the stairs to her bedroom.

Now that it was morning, she had a bigger challenge facing her - getting downstairs and out of the door before David realized that she was running nearly half an hour late. She really wanted a steaming hot cup of coffee with a side of ibuprofen, but it would have to wait until she got to the station since she wasn't going to have time to stop at Granny's on the way. She tiptoed down the stairs as stealthily as she could, crossed through the kitchen to grab her bag and jacket by the front door - instantly freezing and cringing at the sound of two words uttered from the living room.

"Late night?"

Damn. Of course, David was already awake. "Yeah. Sorry… I'm on my way in…" she apologized without making eye contact with her brother. She absolutely needed to get a place of her own.

"Give Anton a call when you get to the station. He left a very strange message on my phone this morning and it sounded very much like a problem that will take someone with _your_ particular skill set to deal with…"

"Really? What kind of problem?"

"He said that a couple of his pigs escaped their pen and got into the bean fields…"

Emma swung her head around at the mention of Anton's beans with a puzzled and slightly worried expression on her face. "Do I dare ask - which beans? String beans? Beanstalk beans? Or…"

"That would be the _or_. Apparently, they ate a few of Anton's new experimental anti-gravity beans that he's been testing to make climbing those big ol' beanstalks to his realm easier."

"So… we've got flying pigs?" she deadpanned, too hungover to even find the humor in this ridiculous situation.

"Technically floating pigs… I mean, they can't really go anywhere due to the protective field around Anton's farm, but he needs someone who might be able to do a little magical piggy wrangling."

Emma shook her head and exhaled a frustrated sigh. This definitely wasn't the start she needed for this day. She had to think of a spell that would either counteract the effect of the beans or somehow figure a way to confine them to a safe area until the beans wore off - however long that may take.

The ironic part was that two days ago, if someone had told her that she'd have two handsome, eligible men vying for her attention, she would have replied _when pigs fly_. Now she was about to contend with actual airborne swine while thinking about both of those wonderful men. But she was also trying to ignore a niggling thought deep in her subconscious that kept saying that this wasn't necessarily a good thing. She just wasn't clear-headed enough to want to listen to it yet.

* * *

A few hours later, after battling three very unruly pigs at Anton's bean farm, Emma was now certain she'd seen everything. She'd attempted three different spells trying to get the pigs to come back down to earth, but none were successful. So, with Anton's assurance that the floating effect would wear off in a few hours, as a last resort, she used her teleportation abilities to relocate each of the pigs into the general area of their enclosure. Once all three were back in one place, she utilized a protection spell to put a separate force field around the pig pen so they wouldn't be able to fly off again. She just couldn't promise Anton that they'd have a soft landing when the beans wore off, so he'd made the decision to make the enclosure as muddy as possible to help cushion their descent.

Mud that had clung to her boots as she'd wandered into Granny's, already exhausted only two hours into her morning. Who would have thought that wrangling flying pigs would be such hard work? It had certainly been enough to leave her famished so she'd left David a message to let him know she was taking her lunch hour early so she could get breakfast. Graham could handle things until she got back she told herself as she slid onto one of the stools at the diner's counter.

The little devil on her shoulder urged her to order some bacon and eggs, but when Ruby came over to take her order, she decided on a Belgian waffle with strawberries and a heap of whipped cream on top instead. She did go ahead and order a side of scrambled eggs, but what she really wanted brought out to her first was the biggest cup of Granny's strongest brew. Ruby took her order to the kitchen, then returned to fill both Emma's stainless steel travel mug as well as a ceramic mug to drink here. Emma thanked her bubbly friend, silently questioning how anyone could be so perky this early in the morning as took a tentative sip of the steaming coffee. She relished the beverage's aroma but didn't realize how much she'd been craving it until the welcome warmth reached her belly. _Now this morning was improving_.

After a short wait, Granny herself emerged from the kitchen with Emma's food, immediately scrunching her nose in disgust as she approached the deputy.

"What the hell is that stench?" Granny scowled, glaring at Emma - and the muddy footprints that the deputy had left on the floor when she entered the diner. "And where did that mess come from?"

"Sorry, Granny," Emma flushed with embarrassment while digging through her jacket pockets in search of her wand. "I was out at Anton's farm and I sort of forgot…" Brandishing her magic wand, she waved it in the direction of the dirty floor and recited the spell - " _Et abiit lutum_. _Dirt be gone_." With a swish of her wand, the floor was sparkling clean once again and Emma repeated the spell over her boots, not daring to leave behind even the slightest trace of mud when she left the building.

"That's better," the elder woman grumbled as she placed the plates of food onto the countertop directly in front of Emma. "Next time, please clean the boots _before_ entering my diner." Emma nodded in agreement as she stabbed her fork into a chunk of scrambled egg. You just didn't argue with Granny. Ever.

By the time she'd finished off the eggs and devoured half of the waffle (but all of the strawberries), she heard the tap of shoe soles on the magically clean tile approaching her. A quick glance over her left shoulder revealed that the figure nearing her was Walsh, seemingly off to a late start this morning. She noticed that his pace slowed a bit as he got closer, his steps becoming tentative as he reached the counter - and Emma, for that matter.

"Good morning, Emma," he greeted her, his voice a little timid. "I hadn't expected to see you here. Would you mind if I joined you?"

"The seat's not occupied," she teased, still very aware of the awkward way they'd said goodnight last evening. He was partially responsible for her hangover so she didn't feel the least bit guilty taunting him a bit. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could wrangle an explanation out of him for his weird behavior yesterday without having to outright ask. "Thank you again for dinner last night. I had a great time catching up on lost time. Can I return the favor and buy you breakfast?"

"How about just coffee?" he suggested as he took a seat on the stool to her left. "I have a meeting with one of my suppliers this morning so I'm short on time."

"Sure. Hey, Ruby - can I get another coffee for my friend here?"

"Just a sec. I've got a fresh pot brewing," Ruby responded, fishing a second ceramic mug from beneath the counter. She brought the empty mug over to where Emma and Walsh were sitting, giving Emma a sly wink of approval as she placed the cup in front of Walsh. "Be right back, hon."

Emma shook her head at the waitress' actions, although she secretly appreciated the affirmation. As promised, Ruby came right back over with a fresh pot of coffee, filling Walsh's mug and topping off Emma's before scurrying off. They each waited until she was out of earshot before continuing their conversation.

"Emma, I think I owe you a bit of an apology over how our evening ended last night," Walsh spoke up, his confession catching her off-guard. She hadn't imagined that he would bring up the subject without even the slightest bit of prodding.

"An apology?" she feigned ignorance. "For what?"

"I guess I didn't like how things ended rather abruptly and that's entirely my fault. I let myself get a little too comfortable and I completely forgot that it wasn't the old days. I'd fully expected to see you off with a goodnight kiss, forgetting entirely that we weren't on a date. It wouldn't have been appropriate and I'm very sorry if you sensed any disappointment on my part."

"The thought never crossed my mind," she insisted, shoving another forkful of waffle into her mouth before her tongue had a chance to betray her.

"Phew," he sighed loudly. "I was honestly worried that you'd be upset with me this morning and I'm really glad that you aren't because I'd love to have dinner with you again. If you'll have me, that is…"

"I would love to have dinner with you again, Walsh," she replied after she finished chewing and swallowing her food. "How long do you expect to be in town?"

"Through the weekend, for sure and it looks like probably Monday since the shipment I'm awaiting seems to be delayed by a storm in the Atlantic. That's what my meeting this morning is about - to get an update on the ship's pending arrival. Are you free tomorrow night?"

"Tomorrow's Friday, right? I can't tomorrow. I have a meeting…"

"A meeting? At night?"

"Well, more like a training session - to help me work on refining some newly-acquired skills." She wasn't entirely sure how she should explain that she was actually attending a coven gathering at the height of the full moon, but since Walsh had hinted earlier that he was familiar with Storybrooke's less-than-secretive other side, she didn't think he'd be opposed to discover that she was dabbling in magic. "I've been studying to become a witch."

"A witch?" he asked incredulously, although she didn't sense he was overly surprised by her revelation.

"Yes. Technically, I guess I already am a witch, but I'm still pretty much a novice. I've been studying with some of the town's most powerful…"

"The Mills sisters?" he interrupted, again catching her unprepared for his query. He was definitely well-versed enough to be able to drop names.

"Yeah, I've been learning from them as a part of their current coven."

"Excellent teachers, I'm sure."

"They are, but just how do you know about them?" she asked skeptically. "You've crossed paths with them?"

"So to speak. I've been doing business in Storybrooke for years and through my contacts here, I've learned a lot about this little town. As I mentioned yesterday, this town is a great source for unique discoveries."

"Alright then, I have to ask - do you practice magic at all?"

"No, I don't dabble in it myself, but I've picked up a few potions here and there from Mr. Gold at the pawn shop. He's an excellent apothecary as well. I've been told that both he and his wife were members of the Mills sisters' coven until maybe a year ago. I guess they mostly stopped practicing magic when their son was born but Mr. Gold is still a wonderful source of information and trinkets."

"I haven't really gotten to know the Golds that well, but as you know, Storybrooke is full of surprises," she chuckled nervously, for some reason feeling ill at ease with the direction the conversation had taken. She glanced up at the clock on the wall near the old jukebox and made a very animated display of being late. "Oh, crap! I hate to run off on you again, Walsh, but I really better get to the station before my brother sends out a search party. I'm probably free Saturday though…"

"I'll take a look at my agenda, but I'm pretty sure I'm free that day too."

"Great. Call me later then." She forced a smile to her lips as she gathered up her things and dropped a ten dollar bill and a couple of ones on the countertop to pay for her meal and Walsh's coffee. "Thanks, Ruby!" she shouted to her friend as she snatched up the travel mug. "I'll see you around town, Walsh."

Walsh stood up to see her out before returning to his seat. Ruby swiftly whisked away Emma's empty plates before asking Walsh if there was anything else she could get him. He politely declined, staring at Emma through the window as she made her way through the diner's courtyard and disappeared beyond the hedge. Ruby gave him a smile and a nod as she vanished into the kitchen with a huge grin on her face knowing that tomorrow night she was absolutely going to grill Emma to learn everything about her handsome _friend_.

* * *

Despite clearing the air with Walsh and making tentative plans with him for the weekend, Emma had only a singular thought on her mind the rest of the day - her date that evening with the infuriatingly charming Captain Jones. A relatively light afternoon of patrols allowed her to leave the station on time - and to take a much needed shower to wash away any remaining traces of Anton's bean field mud. Tonight, she was going on a proper date, albeit on that modern day pirate ship, and she wanted to look her best.

She'd selected a soft pink chiffon dress from her armoire and drew her unruly hair back into the neatest ponytail she could manage. She wasn't sure why, but she really wanted to project a softer image tonight, to showcase a more feminine side than the tough-talking, hard-drinking deputy that the captain had witnessed so far. She'd even added a rare touch of makeup to her face - a little mascara, a bit of shimmering peach eyeshadow and a hint of shiny mauve lip gloss - not that she was intending to kiss anyone tonight. It just seemed appropriate.

At quarter to seven, she scurried down the stairs, grabbed her tan leather jacket from the rack beside the front door and slipped out before her sister-in-law, Mary Margaret, could even say "have a good night". She'd decided it was best to drive to the harbor since the gathering clouds overhead were threatening a storm and the last thing she wanted to do was walk home through rain-swollen puddles in dress shoes. It was just before 7PM when she pulled her yellow Bug into a parking space opposite the Jolly Roger, and she couldn't quite figure out why she was experiencing increasing anxiety.

_It was just a date. She'd been on dates before. Why was she suddenly so damned nervous?_

Her heart was pounding as she ascended the gangplank, cursing her choice of footwear as her heels made an awful racket on the metal ramp. Once aboard, she noticed that there were a few lanterns illuminating the deck but there was little activity. She could hear the creaking of the old wood and the waves lapping against the hull, but not much else. It would appear that the captain had been true to his word about giving the crew a night off.

One individual was on the deck to greet her though and that was the jovial Mr. Smee. At the sight of her, he scrambled to get to the top of the gangplank before she did, offering a hand to aid her in stepping down onto the slippery wooden planking.

"So lovely to see you again, Deputy Swan," the first mate gushed, welcoming her with a huge smile. "The captain hasn't stopped talking about you all day and he's expecting you in his quarters."

"He's been talking about me, huh?" she responded with a nervous chuckle, thankful that the darkness of the night obscured her blushing.

"My goodness, yes, dear… He had Cookie prep a lovely meal for the two of you and,if I do say so myself, it smells absolutely divine!"

"Sounds wonderful."

"Well, now - right this way, Deputy," he instructed with an animated gesture towards the hatch she'd seen Killian Jones emerge from yesterday. Smee led the way and even raised the hatch for her. "Right down below, Miss. Just watch yer step…"

"Thank you, Mr. Smee," she replied, getting a look at the steep, angled ladder that descended into the Captain's quarters, wishing once again that she'd worn anything but heels tonight. She was also regretting her choice of attire as a sharp breeze across the stern nearly gave her an unwanted Marilyn Monroe moment. They were way too early in this relationship for her to be showing off her undergarments and she could only hope that her date was enough of a gentleman to allow her to descend this awkward ladder without peeking up her skirt.

The cozy room below was decorated with surprisingly eccentric style and smelled faintly of rum, candles and the musty scent of old books and maps. She found Killian in the center of the chamber with his back to her, lighting the second of two slender, ruby red taper candles atop a sturdy looking wooden table. In addition to the candles, the table was set with two plates that appeared to be actual fine china, flatware that was likely real silver as it has just the slightest blemish of tarnish and two crystal goblets. A pair of matching wooden armchairs with brocade seat cushions flanked the table and in the center of the display sat a silver ice bucket containing a bottle of wine he'd brought out to chill.

"Good evening, Swan," he greeted her, spinning around to face her with a single, long stemmed red rose clutched in his prosthetic left hand. "For you, Love." He extended the mechanical hand toward her, offering the flower that she accepted with a blushing grin.

"Thank you," she replied as she brought the bloom to her nose, inhaling its fragrance. "No hook this evening?"

"I decided to go with a softer persona this evening, although if you prefer the other attachment, I'll be happy to swap them."

"A softer persona? Were you afraid of intimidating me?" she asked him with a snicker.

"Well, I do cut an intimidating figure, do I not?"

She wasn't entirely certain if he was being serious or facetious but with a challenge like that, she couldn't help but give him a visual once-over. He'd traded out the black denim from yesterday for a pair of black dress trousers which he'd paired with a black wool sweater that hugged the curve of his biceps almost indecently. Her brain immediately reminded her about his off-the-cuff comment yesterday about seeing anything she liked and right now, she only had one answer - _yes_. She was enjoying everything she was seeing.

"Still full of yourself, I see," she quipped as he ushered her to one of the armchairs so she could sit down.

"Merely confidence, Love," he assured her with a sinful smirk as he withdrew the dark green glass wine bottle from its icy bath. "Would you care for some wine? I have this lovely vintage chilling here, but if you prefer, there's always plenty of rum."

"After last night, I think I'll start off slow. Some wine would be perfect." As she took her seat, he yanked the cork from the wine bottle using his teeth, filling her goblet before his own.

"My cook will be here momentarily with tonight's repast. I do hope that you enjoy seafood as I inadvertently failed to ask."

"I grew up in New England so I think seafood was one of the main food groups - at least if frozen fish sticks and tater tots count."

"Ah, a classic combination," he chuckled. "This may be a trifle more haute cuisine though."

"I certainly hope so, Captain, or I'll be sadly disappointed in your standards," she countered sarcastically as she took a sip from her glass, quickly realizing that if his taste in wine was any indication, dinner should be an absolute treat.

In fact, the only real disappointment Emma experienced that night was that it had to come to an end. The food was delicious and the wine he'd selected complemented it perfectly. This roguish captain surprised her at every turn. For all of his posturing and machismo, she'd found Killian Jones to be a perfect gentleman and a well-educated, excellent storyteller. True or not, he'd entertained her with tales of his voyages around the globe and when he'd finished, he listened intently to her exploits. She'd not been on a date this enjoyable in a very long time but unfortunately, tomorrow was still a work day so she knew she needed to wind things down.

"Well, Captain Jones," she began with a deep sigh, "you do indeed know how to show a girl a good time, but unfortunately, my time is running short."

"Alas, the real world interferes," he replied disparagingly. He was enjoying the evening as much as she was, but he knew that they each still had duties to attend to in the morning. "We wouldn't want you turning into a pumpkin at midnight, now would we?"

"I can assure you, I've never turned into a pumpkin… A bear, maybe, but never a pumpkin... But yeah…, sometimes the real world sucks."

"In Storybrooke, I would hesitate to take any unnecessary chances at the witching hour."

His choice of words caught her attention and for a moment, unnerved her until she recalled that she'd been toying with Magic last night at the Rabbit Hole. He'd probably observed her for a while, deciding if it was safe to approach, but clearly not adverse to her powers.

"I really hope we might be able to do this again before you set sail," she mentioned, hopefully that he'd be open to the suggestion.

"I can certainly make that happen, Love. We're awaiting supplies from another ship that has been delayed by a foul Nor'easter. We won't be leaving port for a few days, at the very least. Just let me know when you're free and I can make arrangements to be there."

"You can just drop everything for a date?" she wondered.

"It's good to be the Captain," he assured her with a wily smirk.

"I'm sure it is," she smiled broadly. This man was just too much. "Well, Captain, I will let you know when I have some free time. I'd really like to do this again."

"As would I, Swan. Now, how about I walk you out to your vehicle?"

"Actually, as wonderful as that sounds, I'm going to walk myself out so I'm less likely to give in to temptation. After being burned one too many times before, I'd rather not rush into anything…"

"Then I shall bid you goodnight, Emma. Until we meet again?"

"Absolutely." There was no way she wasn't going to plan a second date with Killian Jones but she was treading cautiously with both potential romances. The spell promised that she'd discover true love but it didn't say it would be easy.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a tiny bit late getting this chapter finished. Between celebrating my youngest's birthday and working tons of extra hours in preparation for the uncertainty of Hurricane Dorian, I got a little behind with writing. I've got this all ready to go now and this chapter will find Emma learning some news that just might leave her a little shaken.

Emma probably could have floated home that night since her spirits were soaring so high. As she opened the door to the loft, her cheeks were aching from smiling so much during her drive and elation carried her right through the doorway. She unceremoniously tossed her coat and clutch onto the kitchen island as she caught sight of the couple sitting on the living room loveseat staring at her.

"I really need to get a place of my own," she muttered when she saw Mary Margaret's giddy grin and her brother's disapproving scowl.

"So - how was it?" Mary Margaret eagerly inquired, leaning forward in anticipation. "You're practically beaming so it must have been good…"

"I had a great evening," Emma replied, unsure how much detail she was willing to share with her brother and his wife.

"Who were you out with tonight?" David asked in full, overly-protective big brother mode. "Anyone I know?"

"No, it actually wasn't anyone you know," Emma assured him as she yanked off the elastic band that was holding her hair back, allowing her long locks to tumble free over her shoulders.

"How's that possible? I know just about everyone in this town…" David countered skeptically. His sister had gone out with a stranger?

"He's visiting from out of town," Emma stated, trying to keep David's skepticism from spoiling her mood.

"Out of town?" David glared. "You went out on a date with a complete stranger?"

"Oh, for goodness sake, David," Mary Margaret interjected, smacking him on the knee. "She's a grown woman - and a Sheriff's deputy. What exactly are you worried about?"

"I'd just rather know who my little sister is getting involved with," David responded, sounding more like a dad with every statement he made.

"I think I'm enough of a big girl to take care of myself," Emma spoke up defensively. "But if you must know, he wasn't a _complete_ stranger. I'd met him a couple of days ago on a case."

"A case?" David struggled to recall what assignments he'd handed out to his sister this week and only one possibility came to mind. "You mean that drunken sailor down at the harbor?"

"Yes, that case, but not with the drunken sailor. My date was with the ship's captain and he was actually quite the gentleman. If I wasn't working tomorrow, I think I could have spent all night talking to him…"

"Talking?" he scoffed, not believing that at all.

"Yes, David - _talking_ ," Emma insisted, shaking her head in disgust. "And since you aren't going to believe me anyway, I'm going to head to bed and then tomorrow morning, I'm going to start planning another date with Captain Jones."

"Ooh, is that his name?" Mary Margaret jumped in, raising a hand to shush David from arguing any further.

"Yeah, Killian Jones, Captain of the Jolly Roger," Emma told her sister-in-law.

"Sounds like a pirate ship name…," David mumbled.

"Oh hush," Mary Margaret warned her husband. "Your sister had a great evening and doesn't need you souring it for her. You haven't even met this man so don't judge."

"Thank you, Mary Margaret," Emma smiled appreciatively at her defender. "But like I said, it is late and I'm heading up to bed. I wouldn't _dare_ be late for work tomorrow, but I swear, if anything involves a farm again, I'm dragging Graham with me so he can do all the stomping through the mud this time."

* * *

Still a little peeved with her brother by the time morning rolled around, Emma was glad to take the Sheriff's cruiser out on the day's first patrol. Alone in the car, she had some much needed time to think - well, maybe just a little too much time.

She still couldn't think about Killian Jones without a smile creeping across her face. The man was definitely the complete package - handsome, well-educated and obviously well-traveled. But for whatever reason, it was that _well-traveled_ part that was giving her second thoughts. Could she really enter into and sustain a relationship with someone who was constantly sailing in and out of her life? Would she be able to trust him or would she end up being just his girl in this port? Her only long term relationship experience was with a man who couldn't go two weeks before he'd started cheating - although Killian certainly seemed much higher class than Neal ever would be.

On the other hand, there was Walsh. He wasn't nearly as exciting as the dashing Captain Jones, but he was familiar. He was based out of Boston, only a couple of hours away, so maybe he was the safer choice? While their relationship hadn't lasted before, it was probably because of the Neal-sized baggage she'd brought in to it. There was something to be said about slipping back into their cozy conversation, yet at the same time, she couldn't help but think about how easily she'd also been able to chat with Jones.

Ugh, maybe this wasn't the best time to be contemplating her love life, she thought as she made her third pass down Main Street. Trying to distract herself, she watched the usual stream of locals filing in and out of Granny's diner and noted lots of people she recognized strolling along the sidewalks. There were a handful of faces she didn't know, but they were likely residents who lived on the outskirts of town who didn't venture into town often.

It was only as she drove past Mr. Gold's pawn shop that something in her subconscious urged her to make a U-turn at the next intersection. She parked the cruiser at the curb outside of the little shop and stepped out. She'd only been inside the store once or twice since she'd arrived in Storybrooke but she had met the Golds a few times. Mr. Gold ran the pawn shop business (and probably a few other side businesses of questionable legality) and his wife, Belle, was the town librarian.

A small bell attached to the doorknob announced her arrival as she pushed the shop door open and passed through the entrance. The store's interior was every bit as eclectic - and every bit as creepy - as she'd remembered. Knickknacks and assorted trinkets were everywhere, inside glass cases, displayed on shelving or even hanging from the ceiling. Some of these were decidedly more macabre than others. Honestly, who keeps a human hand in a damned glass jar?

There wasn't anyone visible behind the counter or the ancient cash register that sat atop it as she made her way into the center of the shop, still not entirely sure of what had possessed her to come in.

"Good morning, Deputy Swan," a voice resounded from somewhere out of her view. The greeting was then followed by the rustling of wooden beads which hung in strips as a curtain dividing the shop from the private office beyond. A diminutive man with shoulder length grey hair wearing an impeccable dark wool suit appeared in the same doorway. "What can I do for you?"

"Uh, hello…," she stammered, mentally debating whether she should just turn around and return to the car, but she held her ground. "A mutual friend of ours sorta suggested that you might be a good source to ask about my mother…"

"Mutual friend?" He didn't even attempt to disguise his confusion.

"Walsh Gibbons," she replied, expecting more than his blank expression.

"Wouldn't exactly call him a friend," Gold stated. "We've done business together, but that's all."

"Oh," she said dejectedly. "He made it sound as though you knew each other well. I guess this was a wasted trip… Sorry to bother you."

"I have known Mr. Gibbons for a very long time, but we aren't more than acquaintances. We don't exchange holiday cards or do we invite each over to our homes. Strictly business, that's it…"

"I see…," Emma whispered under her breath as she turned towards the exit before she made a bigger fool of herself.

"Gibbons was correct in that I did know your mother though." Gold's words stopped her in her tracks and regained her curiosity. "You're Robert and Ava Nolan's daughter. I wasn't particularly close with your parents but we did know each other and I may be able to be of some assistance to you."

"I guess I was hoping that you might have some insight as to why she left Storybrooke," Emma explained as she approached the glass counter. My brother and most everyone else I know were all too young to remember and I haven't found much about her in the archives."

"There aren't many of us left from that era. Your mother was a bit of a free spirit, if I recall. She was often in opposition to others here about the town's direction. She had quite the independent spirit for a very long time, but then one day, the fire just went out of her."

"Was that around the time she left?"

"No - this was a few years earlier. She was merely a shell of her former self by the time she left Storybrooke."

Emma reminisced about the woman who'd raised her and not much was making sense. "But you don't know the reason she left?"

"Her reasons were her reasons, dearie," he stated with a shrug of his shoulders. "No one pushed her away and she would have been welcomed back with open arms had she chosen to return, but she never did."

"Considering she grew up here, sometimes it really seems like no one really knew my mother…"

"I do seem to recall that she brought a few items in to sell a few days before she left town," Gold dodged her unasked question by changing the subject. "I believe that some of those things might still be here as they weren't really items that would sell... But, at the time, she seemed so desperate…"

"That was more than twenty years ago," she reminded him, her voice heavy with skepticism as the shopkeeper made his way over to an antique oak cabinet and tugged open an ornately carved door. Inside, Emma spied a hodgepodge of objects - books, jewelry and was that an animal skull? "You really think you have stuff that belonged to my mother after all of these years?"

"Yes - here," he replied, lifting two dusty books that resembled those inside Regina's vault and a rectangular box that was just slightly larger than one of the books. "These were hers. Not much of a market for these little things…"

"What are those?" Emma queried, her interest suddenly piqued by the mere notion that these long, lost objects had belonged to her mother.

"For the right price, you can find out," he stated with a greedy, almost sinister grin widening across his face.

"The right price? Seriously?" she asked indignantly. This was a new low…

"I'm a simple businessman, Deputy. The objects were sold to me and if you would like to acquire them, you'll need to purchase them."

"How much?"

"Let's see…," he stalled, quite intentionally. "Perhaps we can strike a deal?"

"A deal? For what?"

"I'm aware that you are a member of Regina's current coven. We had a disagreement a while back and amidst our detente, she never returned a certain item that belongs to me."

"And I suppose you want me to get it for you?"

"If you would be so kind. Bring it to me and your mother's belongings are yours."

"Fine. What exactly am I asking Regina to return?"

"It's an old potion book that once belonged to a great alchemist. It is bound in royal blue leather and is entitled _Potions of the Modern World._ "

"And that's it? I bring you the book and I get my mother's stuff?"

"Do we have a deal?" Gold asked eagerly.

"We have a deal. Any idea where Regina might be keeping your book?"

"Probably in her vault. She's warded the building against me so I can't go look for myself."

"Okay, I'll be there tonight so I'll look for it."

"Wonderful. 'Tis a pleasure doing business with you, Deputy."

"We'll see," she scoffed, hoping she could find his damned book quickly and without interference from the Mills sisters. "Just what sort of disagreement did you have that caused you to quit the coven?"

"Let's just say that we took a differing interpretation of things. Keep this in mind, dearie - not all in Storybrooke is what you might think."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Gold merely grinned and bid her adieu, leaving her contemplating his statement for the remainder of the day.

* * *

By the time the sun set that evening, Emma's thoughts still weren't any clearer than they'd been that morning. She'd walked out of that pawn shop feeling slightly dumbfounded and utterly confused. Now, as she walked across the cemetery to the mausoleum, she was still trying to make sense of Gold's cryptic statement. What had the old man meant with his warning?

Twilight was making the graveyard shadows darken as the coven awaited the rise of the full moon at 8:27PM. Emma knew that Regina and Zelena were preparing some sort of elaborate ritual to mark the occasion but with so much on her mind, she wasn't thinking about rituals and spells - well, not the ones that the Mills had in mind at least. She found the sisters setting up a circle of lanterns in a grassy clearing behind the mausoleum and in the center of that circle was a carefully arranged pile of firewood that left Emma convinced there must be a cauldron around here somewhere. Cauldron or not, she was relieved to find the Mills sisters distracted so she would have some time to search for Mr. Gold's missing potion book. She'd rather not be caught poking around the vault hunting for it and have them start asking her questions about what she was looking for. Of course, there was always the possibility that she'd have to break down and ask Regina about it anyway, but she'd rather that option be a last resort. She had to be able to locate it on her own.

She managed to slip into the vault and down the staircase without drawing the attention of either Regina or Zelena and found only Ruby downstairs in the chamber, seated cross-legged on the floor with a bright, crimson cape draped across her lap. The waitress' face lit up the moment she spied Emma - who had absolutely no doubt about what Ruby was going to ask.

"Emma! I'm sooo happy to see you…" Ruby greeted her with a huge, expectant smile. Yeah, she was going to ask about Walsh…

"Hi, Ruby," Emma reciprocated the welcome, returning a far more half-hearted smile though. She really didn't have time to engage in a discussion about the man who'd met her for breakfast so she tried to dodge it with a little small talk as she perused the stacks and shelves of books. "You ready for this ritual tonight?"

"You mean that full moon ritual?" Ruby queried with a shake of her head. "Not me. I'm staying right down here until they're done. The full moon kinda does strange things to me…"

"It does?" Emma asked her friend quizzically. "Why did you come out tonight then?"

"You know exactly why - to ask you about your handsome _friend_ who you were talking to at the diner yesterday…" she stated exuberantly. "You need to spill the details, sister…"

Yeah, this was exactly the conversation she didn't want to have right now. "Walsh is just an old friend from Boston and yes - before you even ask - we did date for a while. He's in town for a few days and we agreed to have dinner."

"Ah - rekindling the old flame?"

"That I don't know…," Emma admitted truthfully. "We met for dinner the other night and we might get together again tomorrow, but…"

"But what?" Ruby wondered. "He's not married, is he?"

"No, he's not married," Emma chuckled nervously, trying to focus on the rows of books before her, not this ridiculous conversation. She needed to find Gold's book and get the hell out of here, but she knew Ruby would never be pacified so easily.

"If he isn't married, what's the problem?" Ruby pressed. "He sure looks like a juicy catch…"

"It's sorta complicated…," Emma replied, immediately regretting her choice of wording.

"Complicated?" A broad, knowing smirk curled Ruby's lips and the words Emma was dreading blurted out of her friend's mouth. "Oh my god, Emma - there's another guy, isn't there?"

And there it was - the precise dilemma that Emma hadn't wanted to make public just yet. She could try to deny it, but Ruby would be all over her and if the truth came out elsewhere, it'd be more damaging than just telling her friend.

"Alright, alright… There might be…," Emma told her. "Can we not broadcast it just yet though?"

Ruby slid closer to the bookshelf. "Ooh, what does the other one look like?" she continued to grill Emma, but at least her voice was a whisper this time. "Tall, dark and handsome or fair and fine?"

Emma shook her head and lowered it in defeat. "Dark, windswept hair, incredible blue eyes and the deepest, sexiest, accented voice that would absolutely make you melt..."

"Girl, you are going to have to give me more than that!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Maybe later," Emma offered. "I just don't really want anyone knowing about my love life just yet…"

"Okay, I get it," Ruby replied with a wink. "We can have a little girl talk later?"

"If we don't get done with these full moon rituals too late tonight," Emma gave her a vague agreement, not wanting to divert too much of her attention from the hunt for Gold's damned potion book. Regina and Zelena would be finished setting up in the cleaning soon so it was time to redouble her efforts.

She tried to remain nonchalant about her search. Just browsing the shelves while waiting. That's all she was doing and that's all she wanted it to look like. Casual. Not suspicious at all - at least until she actually found the title she was hunting for. She spied the faded blue leather spine peeking out from amongst the other volumes on the very top shelf and the title, _Potions for the Modern World,_ spelled out in worn, slivered block lettering. It was just tantalizingly out of her reach though. How was she supposed to get it down?

Her eyes darted fervently around the chamber looking for a step stool or a chair that wouldn't collapse beneath her weight if she were to stand atop it. She finally located a three-legged stool beneath the potion table that appeared sturdy enough but all of this was going to draw more of Ruby's attention. Not seeing any other way, Emma pushed the stool out from beneath the table using the toe of her boot. Once it was in reach, she swooped it up and brought it over to the towering bookshelves.

"Whatcha doing, Em?" Ruby asked curiously, just as Emma had expected.

"Just saw a book title that looked interesting…," Emma responded dismissively as she positioned the stool in front of the section she wanted. "And of course, it has to be all the way on the top…"

She hopped up onto the stool, hanging on to the thick wooden center beam of the built-in shelving unit with her right hand as she stretched her left hand towards the volume. She could just get her fingertips on it, working it to the edge of the shelf little by little in hopes of getting a better grip - just a tiny bit too close to that edge.

Emma cursed under her breath as the book tumbled to the floor, landing page-side down with a thud.

"I'll get that for you," Ruby offered as Emma stepped off of the stool. She scooped up the fallen book and inspected it for damage before passing it to Emma. "It looks in good shape," she continued as she handed the book off, but she noticed that there were some loose pages still littering the floor of the vault. Ruby stooped to gather up the remaining items, finding a couple of folded letters or notes and one very faded photograph. "I think these fell out though…"

"Those came out of the book?" Emma questioned.

"I'm pretty sure they did," Ruby replied. "There wasn't anything on the floor before the book landed here. These must have been shoved inside it somewhere."

"I guess we'd better put them back inside then," Emma said as Ruby placed the assorted items into her hand. She'd fully intended to put them all back into the book before returning it to Mr. Gold but Emma simply couldn't resist taking a peek at that lone photograph first.

It was an old color image of two young girls who were wearing clothing that seemingly dated the photograph to the late 1950s or early 1960s. On the left, a taller, dark haired girl was pictured standing with her arm wrapped around the younger, fairer haired girl on the right hand side. Their smiling faces were difficult to make out in the faded photo but Emma sensed something familiar about them.

"Cute kids," Ruby commented from over Emma's shoulder. Emma hadn't even noticed her standing there as she'd stared at the photograph. "Wonder who they are…"

"I've no idea, but I swear, they look familiar to me…"

"You know…," Ruby began, squinting at the image. "The little girl on the right sorta looks like you…"

And it was as though that flashbulb had gone off in Emma's head right then and there as she suddenly realized whose image had transfixed her - _she was looking at a photograph of her own mother as a young child_.

"Ruby - I think that's my mom," Emma stated in a stunned, disbelieving voice.

"Is there anything written on the photo?" Ruby wondered, hoping there might be something to answer more of their questions.

Emma flipped the photo over and found that there was a handwritten note in black ink. "It says _Cora and Ava, 1964_."

"Ava? Wasn't that your mother's name?" Ruby queried, the mystery growing deeper by the moment.

"Yeah, it was…," Emma answered, her eyes still fixed on the image from decades ago.

"And Cora?" Ruby continued. "I think that was Regina and Zelena's mom's name, wasn't it?"

"Uh, yeah… I believe so… I didn't know they were friends, but I guess it's a small town after all… Plus, it was probably even smaller back in the 1960s."

"Maybe there's something in those notes that explains more?" Ruby wondered, anxious to get more information.

"I don't think we should be reading those…," Emma said, not really sure it was right to invade the privacy of whomever had written or received those letters.

"Come on, Emma… Who's going to know?"

"Okay, but I'm blaming you if anyone asks," Emma caved as she set the book atop the stool and began unfolding the first of the delicate, handwritten letters. The brittle paper looked as though it had once been a baby blue hue, but portions had yellowed to take on a much more greenish tint. The blue ink had run in places and faded away entirely in others leaving the note barely legible, but Emma was striving to read as much as she could. " _My dearest daughters, I'm so proud to see your progress! One day, I know that you will be the most powerful witches in all of the realms and we'll defeat the prophecy. Cora, you have done such an amazing job of tutoring your younger sister, and Ava, my darling, you've proven to be such a good little student…"_ Emma paused there, most of the remainder of the letter illegible, but mostly due to her eyes welling with tears. "That's all I can read," her voice cracked with emotion as the implication of what she'd just read sunk in. "But... my mother was Cora's little sister?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Putting out this update a couple days later than planned due to a very busy week but I didn't want to wait until Monday to post it. I know I ended the last chapter on a pretty big cliffhanger (and just might do it again...) so I didn't want to delay the resolution. Emma has just learned that her mother, Ava, was Cora's sister making her a cousin to Regina and Zelena. It's not a surprise she's going to take lightly...

_Anger._

_Betrayal._

_Confusion_.

Emma's emotions were reeling and amplifying with every second that passed. Ruby wanted to say something but she didn't even know where to begin so she chose to remain quiet, close by should Emma reach out, but also just out of reach should her friend decide instead that she needed to punch something.

_They had to have known. Regina and Zelena had both been old enough to have known that Ava was related to David had to have known that his step-mother had also been their aunt. Why would they have kept something this important from her?_

Emma had so many questions swirling inside her head for her newfound cousins and even more for her brother, questions she wasn't even sure how to ask. All she knew right knew right now was that she was seething and then she heard the voices echoing from the stairway.

"Everything is set up," she heard Zelena announce, but Emma no longer harbored any interest in the planned rituals for the full moon or even for anything related to magic in general. She was hurting and the secrets that had been withheld from her were the cause.

The moment Regina's visage rounded the last corner and came into view, Emma lashed out, holding up the photograph that had tumbled out of Gold's book. "When were you going to tell me?" she growled, practically shoving the picture into Regina's face.

"Tell you what? Zelena just said that everything was ready. Let's get upstairs…," Regina responded, barely glancing at the old photograph.

"Seriously? I'm not talking about your damned rituals!" Emma glared as she waved the photo into Regina's line of sight again. "This! When were you going to fill me in on this little secret, _cousin_?"

"Cousin…," Zelena repeated knowingly, although she was more than happy to fade into the background and allow her younger sister to take the brunt of Emma's ire.

"Emma…," Regina began, hands raised before her defensively as she sought to defuse the situation that they had indeed created. "Emma, we always intended to tell you when you were ready…"

"When I was ready?" Emma scoffed. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? Why would I need to be _ready_ to find out that we were related? Why did it need to be such a secret for me to find out who I'm related to around here?!"

"Okay...that's my cue to leave," Ruby said shyly as she threw her crimson cape on over her shoulders as voices raised which was probably going to lead to tempers flaring. She flipped the hood atop her brunette hair and eased her way back a few steps past Zelena. "I'm outta here…" she whispered, grimacing at the thought of what was to come. "Em, call me later if you need to chat…"

Regina ignored Ruby's exit as she attempted to plead her case. "You needed to be more confident in your magic first," she explained. "You needed to trust us as your teachers so that when the time came, you'd understand…"

"Understand what? I don't understand anything right now except that all of you lied to me!" Emma shouted back angrily. "This doesn't have anything to do with magic! You knew that my mother was your aunt and that I was your cousin the moment we met. Why would you keep that from me?"

"You may not believe us, but we did it for your own good," Zelena interjected. "It wasn't supposed to be a secret, but you had to be ready for the truth…"

"My own good? You sincerely expect me to believe that? Hell, why should I believe anything that either of you tell me now? Did you only sign on to tutor me in magic because I was your cousin?"

"It's not like that, Emma…," Regina sighed exasperatedly. "You being our cousin was only a tiny part of the reason we agreed to tutor you in the magical arts. Storybrooke's future depends on it…"

"What?" Emma asked in confusion. _How was anything in Storybrooke dependent on her?_ "You're making absolutely no sense…"

"We can explain…," Zelena offered, but she knew Emma was aching far too much and wasn't in the most receptive mood at that moment. There was too much history to explain. So much that Emma would need to be educated about before she'd understand and this night wasn't going to be near enough.

"Oh, I'd love for you to explain it all to me, but not right now," Emma spat "Right now, I can't even look at the two of you without wanting to punch you in your faces, and I still have to decide how to go confront my brother about his role in all of this!" She snatched Gold's potion book from the stool she'd rested it on and tucked everything that had fallen from it back inside the leather bound cover.

"Don't be too hard on David," Regina stated dejectedly, lowering her chin to avoid eye contact. "None of this was his decision…"

"Doesn't make him any less complicit," Emma reminded her cousin as she tucked the book beneath her arm before stabbing an index finger into Regina's face with a stern warning. "We're not done with this conversation. All of you owe me some answers and when I calm down enough, I'll be back for those answers. Right now, I'm getting out of here before I do something I might regret!"

She stomped up the steps into the mausoleum and stepped out into the moonlit graveyard with Regina on her heels. Regina could plead for her to listen all she wanted but Emma had already tuned her out. All she wanted right now was someone she could vent to - someone who wasn't family and who wouldn't jump to judgement.

Only one person's name came to mind and she could only hope that he'd answer his phone at this late hour.

* * *

Emma didn't even bother heading back to her car in her haste to escape the cemetery and the growing frustration gnawing away in the pit of her stomach. She'd ended up taking a very brisk walk toward the harbor, wishing that the evening air would help clear her head and calm the maelstrom building within. Nothing she'd done yet had been successful to quell her fiery temper so she was pinning her hopes on someone else.

Killian Jones had answered her brief late night call seeking a drinking buddy and, sensing her unspoken yet audible distress, had agreed to meet her at the dock. Something was definitely not right with his new friend, the deputy, but he was chivalrous enough to lend a damsel an ear and allow her to vent all she needed.

"Is everything alright, Swan?" he asked stupidly, mentally kicking himself for such a ridiculous query when she was obviously visibly upset. "You sounded quite vexed when you phoned so I'm concerned…"

" _Vexed_ would be a severe understatement right now," she grumbled as she neared. As she drew closer to his position, even in the pale glow of the moonlight, he could see that her eyes were reddened and her cheeks dampened with trails of fallen tears.

"Why don't we take a stroll away from here and find somewhere private where you can relay to me everything that's weighing down your heart, Love?" he offered. "I believe you are in need of a patient, singular audience right now, not a noisy, crowded tavern…"

"As long as there's alcohol involved, I don't care where we go… I'm good with heading down to the Rabbit Hole, but if you have a better suggestion… I just want to drink until I can't feel the betrayal anymore…"

He slid his hand inside his hip length black leather coat and withdrew a little piece of history - a weathered, dark brown glass flask topped with a cork plug. "There's a small park that's perhaps a five minute trip from here, right down by the beach. The sea has always been a calming influence on me. Perhaps tonight, it will be for you as well? I've plenty of rum here for whatever level of numbness you desire."

"Rum, huh?" she chuffed. "Should have known you pirate types would have rum around…"

"Shall we then?" he offered, tucking the flask safely away until they reached their destination while simultaneously gesturing to the boardwalk that led away from the docks and down to the waterfront. "You can freely relinquish whatever is on your mind tonight, Emma. You'll find me to be an excellent listener."

As they sat side by side on a concrete park bench, Killian proved true to his word, allowing her to air her gripes without commentary, breaking her monologue with only a few questions here and there for clarification. Simply having him here by her side had already done wonders to lighten Emma's mood, and although she was still bitter, Killian Jones had managed to temper the sting of betrayal with his mere presence. Most of the men she had encountered in her life had been dismissive - her former bosses, former lovers and even her brother at times, but Killian had shown a keen interest in all she had to say, no matter how trivial her ramblings might seem. Neal's interest had been purely physical, as had most of her one night stands that came after that failed relationship so it was unexpected to have a man who actually wanted to hear her thoughts and legitimately cared about how she felt.

He'd patiently allowed her to unload everything on him as she relayed the tale of how she had grown up wanting to know all about her absent family and how she'd always felt she had a much larger lineage, despite her mother's denial. She told him how she'd come to find David through her research and made the decision to move from Boston to Storybrooke, hoping she'd learn more once she could immerse herself into her birthplace. Then, she admitted for the first time tonight that she never imagined that the rest of her family would conceal the truth from her. Regina and Zelena could have told her that she was their cousin, but the simple fact that they hadn't left her to only wonder what else they might be keeping from her.

"Do you think I'm overreacting?" she finally asked him directly after bombarding him for nearly thirty minutes with her woes, fingers tapping nervously atop Gold's book that rested on the bench to her right.

"Well, I suppose it comes down to precisely what their reasoning for withholding the information from you may have been. I'm not privy to their thought process, Love, but perhaps they felt as though they had your best interests at heart?" Killian replied with a shrug of his leather-clad shoulders.

"Best interests of what?" she retorted. "What interests would it serve to not reveal that I was related to them?"

"I wish I could answer that for you but I think you know that only your family will be able to provide those details for you."

Emma sighed in defeat as she slumped back against the bench, taking a pull from Killian's flask of rum - and damned good, strong rum it was. In her head, she knew he was right, but her heart still burned and she wasn't anywhere near drunk enough yet to desire another confrontation with Regina or Zelena. Or to confront David for that matter. She was probably angriest with him right now because they'd been working side by side and even living under the same roof for months and he hadn't even dropped a single hint that Emma might be related to the Mills sisters. There was absolutely no way that he hadn't known as a child that his stepmother was a member of the most powerful family in town.

"I suppose I'm not going to have a whole lot of options except to confront them, am I?" she asked rhetorically as he wrapped a reassuring arm around her shoulders, eliciting an involuntary shudder from her at the unexpected, yet not unwelcome touch. His eyes met hers for a second, ready to apologize and pull away from her, yet she responded with a smile and leaned into him instead. "Thank you for letting me rant like a madwoman tonight."

"Anytime, Love, although if I may be honest, I'm actually surprised that you contacted me I would have thought that you'd have reached out to a friend in this situation, not to someone you barely know…"

"I don't know… That's the thing, I guess. I don't have a lot of friends here that I feel like I can turn to. I feel like no one really knows me around here and yet there's a part of me that feels as though I've known you forever. I feel like you probably know me better than anyone else and maybe it's because you haven't lied to me yet."

"Why would I lie to you, Swan? I want to get to know you - the real you - not push you away. I can't speak for the others, but there are times when honesty becomes a double-edged sword. I'm quite certain that your family held what they believed were valid reasons for not being upfront with you. When you're ready to ask them, I'm certain they'll provide you with the answers you seek."

"I suppose...," she replied, sounding both dejected and hopeful at the same time. "But not tonight. Tonight, I just want to not think about anything… Oh - and I guess I'd better figure out a place to crash. I don't want to see David's face tonight or I might punch it and assaulting the Sheriff, even if he is your brother, is probably frowned upon."

"You're welcome to join us on the Jolly Roger, if you wish. You can have my quarters and I'll bunk with with the crew…"

"As lovely as that offer sounds, I really don't need the town talking about me spending the night on a ship full of sailors. David already thinks you're a bunch of dirty pirates so I'd rather not give him ammunition. I'll probably just go sleep on the sofa at the station. Even though Graham's working tomorrow morning, he won't care."

"As you wish," Killian replied with a mock curtsy before snatching his flask back from her hand and frowning when he discovered it to be nearly empty. "One might wonder who the _pirate_ is here…" he commented with a sinful smirk as he took a swig.

"It's good rum," she stated with a dismissive shrug. "I'm usually more of a beer and whiskey girl but that stuff isn't half bad."

"And more than half gone," he scoffed sarcastically before bursting into laughter. Even in her slightly inebriated state, she couldn't help noticing how his blue eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Forget whatever ritual Regina and Zelena may have had planned, here was the real magic of the full moon and her drunken little soul almost didn't want the night to end.

* * *

Even though she was feeling only slightly tipsy, Emma consented to allow Killian to walk her to the Sheriff's station, recalling only as she was fumbling for the key to the building's rear door that she had left her car parked over by the cemetery. Oh well, it would be fine there for the night. She'd go get it tomorrow after she sobered up. Everyone knew that the beat up old Volkswagen belonged to the Deputy so there was no fear that anyone would dare steal it.

At least she'd been alert enough to remember to grab Gold's potion book before they'd left the park. She was already questioning the veracity of his actual ownership of it and had added the shady pawn shop owner to her list of people she needed to confront over the course of the coming days. Before settling down on the break room sofa, she placed the book safely inside her locker with the incriminating photograph and letter still pressed beneath the cover. _Had it been merely a fluke that those telling items had fluttered out of the book when she'd dropped it? Did Gold know they were inside already, sending her on a hunt to locate that specific volume intentionally?_

Those were questions that would have to wait until daybreak though as she yawned and stretched out on the faux leather sofa, pulling the royal blue and dark red plaid woven blanket off of the back to cover herself. It didn't take long for her to drift off to sleep, replaying the night in her mind. She knew she'd probably regret some of the evening's actions when the sun rose but she dozed off believing the hangover would be well worth it.

As Emma was making herself comfortable in the station's break room for the night, Killian Jones was taking a leisurely pace on his short trek back to his ship at the harbor, grinning like a complete fool the whole way. He has no idea what to expect from his burgeoning relationship with Emma Swan but he fully intended to relish every moment spent in her company. He tried not to think about the fact that he'd be setting sail in a few days, not looking forward to the departure. He could only hold onto a glimmer of hope that should Emma reciprocate his increasing fondness for her, he would immediately start planning his return voyage to Storybrooke.

By the time he scaled the gangplank well after the midnight hour, he knew only a handful of crew would be awake so it wasn't at all surprising to find the top deck of the Jolly Roger deserted. He crossed to the hatch above his quarters in a few long strides as he felt the growing chill apparent in the sea breeze. Stooping to raise the hatch, his fingertips scarcely grazed the handle before finding himself struggling to breathe. Eyes widening, he frantically scoured the deck to find the owner of the unseen hands tightening around his throat but found himself still alone under the moonlit sky. He struggled against his invisible assailant, attempting to claw away whatever might be strangling him but to no avail. Unable to even shout for help, he succumbed to the darkness, falling unconscious atop the unopened hatch.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try my best to get back on track with posting updates every other Monday as long as the real world doesn't get too crazy.
> 
> The last chapter had Emma reacting to learning she was related to the Mills sisters, angrily lashing out at Regina before getting drunk and having a heartfelt talk with Killian. As she settled in to sleep off too much rum, Killian was rendered unconscious by an invisible attacker. This chapter picks up the next morning and by the end of this installment, you'll have a good idea who the real villain of this tale is and an inkling of what Emma has gotten herself into.

The morning sunlight filtering through the break room mini blinds was every bit as unpleasant as Emma had expected when it hit that perfect angle to land directly on her face. Her head throbbed from her over-indulgence in rum last night, but she had no one to blame but herself. Tossing the blanket unceremoniously over the back of the sofa, she pushed herself up to a sitting position just as a somewhat bewildered Graham strolled in to brew his morning coffee.

"Emma? What are you doing here?" he asked, face scrunched in confusion. "Did you sleep here?"

"Yeah," she replied groggily as she stretched and forced her feet to the floor. She stood up to find the room only spinning slightly but increasing her nausea. "Had a little _familial_ disagreement so after a few drinks with a friend, I came here to sleep it off."

"Must have been one rough night…"

"You don't even want to know…" she insisted as she made her way into the locker room in search of a change of clothing. She'd learned a long time ago to always keep a clean shirt and a pair of jeans on hand for emergencies. This way, she knew she had something available to make herself feel a little more human and look at tad more presentable before she embarked on her quest to confront those who'd kept her mother's real identity a secret from her. "Are you making coffee?" she called out to Graham as she changed from yesterday's attire.

"Just starting it now."

"Think you can make it extra strong?"

"I think I can manage that," Graham replied as he fished two mugs out of the cabinet mounted above the break room sink. He placed the mugs on the counter, knowing better than to ask anything else about her night. He'd slept off his own drunken benders in some unusual places too, so before switching on the coffee pot, he removed the bottle of aspirin that they kept in the cabinet and placed it next to her mug. He knew she'd appreciate it.

Emma emerged a few minutes later sporting a clean, rust colored tee shirt and blue jeans, eagerly inhaling the enticing aroma of the fresh brew. Graham was no longer in the break room but she immediately smiled when she saw the aspirin bottle atop the counter. Coffee and a few pain relievers were just what she needed right now before she set off down the street to have a chat with a squirrely pawn shop owner.

* * *

Fueled by caffeine and a reinvigorated desire to get some answers about her mother's mysterious past, Emma stormed her way across and then down half a block of Main Street with Gold's potion booked clutched tightly in her left hand. Since the aspirin hadn't yet had time to kick in, her head was still pounding which was leaving her in no mood to take any crap from the pawn shop's owner.

Gold had opened up the shop for business at exactly 8AM, mere minutes before Emma shoved open the entrance door and stomped her way to the counter where the proprietor stood. She dropped the book onto the display case in front of him, almost hoping that the glass would break. Unfazed by her action, Gold glanced down at the potion book resting on the countertop then back up at the deputy's irate face.

"Good morning, Deputy Swan," he greeted her with little emotion in his voice and showing a considerable lack of interest in the very item that he'd requested her to retrieve for him.

"I found your book," she informed him very matter-of-factly, patting it with her fingertips to ensure she had his attention. "Found the little surprise inside of it too…"

"Surprise? Whatever are you talking about, Ms. Swan?" She wasn't the least bit surprised that he'd feign ignorance of the photograph and letter and she wasn't buying it.

She flipped open the book's cover to reveal the photo of her mother as a child and the faded, handwritten letter from her grandfather. "I suppose you're going to deny that you knew these were inside the book?"

Gold shrugged nonchalantly as he carefully lifted the aging photograph to examine it. "I loaned this book to Cora a very long time ago. I certainly can't speak for what she might have stuck inside it's covers."

"But you knew…"

"Knew what, Dearie?" he rudely interrupted her statement.

"You knew that Cora and my mother were sisters," she stated, undaunted by his apparent disinterest. "Why is it that everyone in this town thinks that it's such a horrible thing for me to know who I'm actually related to around here?"

"I would suppose it is because they weren't certain how you might react to learning the truth about your mother."

"And I suppose that it should have been left up to me, not them!" she countered, raising her voice angrily. "I've had it with all of the secrets! I want those items that belonged to my mother as I kept my end of the deal and I want you to spill what you know about my history!"

"Do you think you can handle the truth about your lineage?"

"I'll let you know. Now, why don't you start telling me what the big secrets are?"

"Fine," he relented as he made his way over to the ornate cabinet where he'd stored the items belonging to Ava Nolan. "You fulfilled your end of our deal by returning my book so your mother's items now belong to you." He tugged open the cabinet door and removed the small box and books he'd shown Emma the previous day and then placed them atop the counter. "I will answer some of your questions as a courtesy to your mother as well, but not out here. How about we go have a seat in my office where it will be more private for you to interrogate me?"

"Lead the way…"

Gold held the heavy beaded curtain aside as he gestured for Emma to pass through the doorway to his office and storeroom that lay beyond the sales floor. The decor of this not-for-public-eyes area was even more eclectic and disturbing than the shop itself but since she wasn't here to debate his decorating choices, she withheld commentary. She was only here this morning to learn about her mother, not discuss interior decorating.

"Have a seat, Ms. Swan," he said, directing her to a fancy upholstered chair that was probably as old as the town itself. Emma sat down on the offered chair, but she didn't allow herself to get too comfortable. She wasn't planning this to be a long, social visit. "I don't have all of the answers you seek, but what would you like to know?" he asked as he took a seat to her right on a burgundy divan.

"I guess we'll start with the same one I've been asking since last night - why was my mother's identity and place in this town such a secret?"

"That was a choice made by your family, I'm afraid. As you know, Storybrooke is a town with an unusual pedigree that they sought to protect. How much of the history of this town do you know?"

"I know a little. I know it was founded by the Blanchard family after the Civil War, in the late 1800's."

"That is correct - your great-grandparents founded the town in 1872, selecting this remote area of Maine to create a safe haven for those who wished to practice the magical arts, both dark and light. They welcomed fellow witches and warlocks and opened a portal across the bay to connect to other magical realms. However, the magic that Storybrooke was founded upon came with a price. To secure the magic that supports the town's infrastructure, your great-grandparents formed a pact with a very powerful warlock from a distant realm. That warlock agreed to share his extensive powers with the town of Storybrooke in exchange for an agreement that he could return whenever he chose and demand a duel for the powers of any practitioner he chose. Should his chosen competitor lose, he would gain their powers, Should the opponent win, the warlock would consider the debt paid and leave forever."

"That seems like an awfully big price to pay just to have magic in this town, but I don't get what that has to do with my mother…"

"I'm getting to that," he assured her, frowning at the young woman's impatience. "The warlock has returned to Storybrooke twice since the town's inception and has won the challenge both times. Your mother was his unfortunate second victim."

"She lost her powers?" Emma asked, partially for clarification, although she'd understood Gold's explanation of the warlock's competition, so she already knew the answer.

"She did. Her challenge caused her to be tricked into making an ill-advised choice, but that's really all I know of it. After losing her magic, she attempted to stay here in town and live a normal life. She married widower Robert Nolan, had you, but then one day, something changed and she took you and disappeared."

"When I was growing up, she never once mentioned that she'd had powers of any kind," Emma stated as she attempted to process all of this new information. "I always thought that she'd run from something bad, maybe something abusive, but after meeting David and learning about our dad, that didn't make sense anymore and now it makes even less sense… What caused her to run away from her home and family?"

"I'm afraid that you'll need to ask those questions of your family. I can't tell you what pushed her away or why they kept her identity a secret from you, but now, if you don't mind, I should be getting back to work."

"I understand. One last question though," she began as she stood up. "Do you have any idea what ill-advised choice she had to make?"

"Afraid not, dearie. All I know is that the warlock came into town and weaseled his way into her life, leading her to that decision. She chose poorly."

"What the hell did she have to choose?" Emma repeated the question to herself while exhaling a deep sigh.

Gold shook his head and shrugged as he ushered her out of his office. "I don't remember much from that time, but from what I do recall of your mother, it likely involved a man."

"What?" she exclaimed as she crossed the threshold back into the main shop. "What do you mean by that?"

"Growing up, your mother had very bad luck with the men in her life. Your grandfather died when she was still rather young and she had a string of boyfriends but few serious relationships. Perhaps your brother or your cousins will remember more?"

"Well, this just keeps getting better and better…," she muttered under her breath as the old man disappeared behind the curtain without another word. Befuddled, she gathered up the few belongings her mother had left with Gold, collected the photograph of her mother and aunt along with her grandfather's letter and wandered out to the sidewalk completely lost in thought. She now had the knowledge that her mother had once possessed magical powers but lost them after being on the losing end of some sort of challenge from an evil warlock - a challenge that had involved some sort of choice - but what? By Gold's description, this challenge had taken place a few years before her mother had run away to Boston so it didn't seem as though the loss of her magic had been the catalyst that caused her to bolt. So, what had it been? What choice had the warlock forced her to make? Had it actually involved a man like Gold had suggested or was there more to it?

She was anxious to see what was inside the mysterious box Gold had held onto for all of these years and to learn more about the books that accompanied the box. First though, she had to take a break and feed her grumbling stomach. The coffee had been a good way to start the morning, but she needed to fuel her growling belly and Granny's was tantalizingly close… Three or four more cups of industrial strength coffee couldn't hurt either.

She took a step into the street, barely noticing the car parked curbside in front of the pawn shop and too distracted by her own thoughts to realize that there was another person in her path. She walked straight into that unseen pedestrian, the collision sending them both tumbling to the asphalt. Emma managed to hold on to her mother's box, but the books fell from her grasp.

"I'm so sorry…,' she began to apologize profusely to the man she'd collided with. "I wasn't looking where I was going…" She pushed herself to her knees and began to gather her belongings, almost afraid to look to see who she had so awkwardly run into. "Are you alright? I hope I didn't knock you over too hard…"

"It's alright, Emma…," the familiar voice said with a chuckle. "This isn't exactly how I planned to run into you, but I'm not going to complain." Recognizing the voice, she flushed with embarrassment. It may have only been Walsh, but she would rather he not see her this flustered.

"Walsh, I guess we literally ran into each other," she said with a shy, awkward grin. "I'm really sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going."

"No worries. I wasn't really paying attention either. I was just heading over to visit Mr. Gold and see if there were any updates on my incoming shipment. What about you? I thought you were off today but that intensity in your gaze says otherwise."

"Oh, I was just returning a book to Gold in exchange for this old stuff that used to belong to my mother. Now I'm heading over to Granny's to get some breakfast and take a look at this stuff. Wanna join me? I'll buy to make up for getting your suit all dirty…"

"I just might take you up on that offer," he said as he brushed some invisible dust off of his dark, coffee bean brown suit. Yeah, she had coffee cravings on her brain again… "Let me finish up my business here but I'll stop over when I'm all done."

"Sounds good," she replied with a hopeful smile. "I'll take my time. After last night, I'll probably need to go through a couple of pots of coffee…"

"Last night? What happened last night?"

"Let's just call it an interesting night that ended in a few too many drinks after having way too much unloaded on me too quickly…"

"Ah… I have heard that the full moon can lead to some overwhelming revelations around here…"

"Oh, just a few revelations… But I'd better let you get back to business. I'll save you a seat if you decide to take me up on the breakfast offer."

"Sounds great, Emma. I'll try to keep things short," he offered, not exactly promising that he'd make it but leaving her hopeful that she might gain some company for breakfast. She had so much to process and she hadn't even gotten to the relatives yet. Maybe it was best to have someone to share the discoveries with her instead of sitting in the diner alone?

Walsh held the smile on his face until as Emma continued (cautiously this time) across the quiet street towards her intended destination of Granny's diner. Once her back was fully to him and he was no longer in her purview, he straightened his sport coat and reset his composure. Projecting a decidedly more business-like demeanor, he entered the pawn shop to seek out its owner.

Alerted by the jingle of the bell attached to the door handle, Gold knew that someone had come into the store, but believing it to be the deputy returning with more inquiries, he responded before poking his head around the curtain.

"If you're back for more, there's not much else I can tell you," Gold said as he stepped around the room divider to see that the person awaiting him in the lobby wasn't Emma Swan, awkwardly finding the face of Walsh Gibbons instead.

"More about what?" a confused and curious Walsh asked as he noted Gold's reaction.

"Mr. Gibbons. My apologies. I thought Ms. Swan was returning with some additional questions about the items she just obtained from me." Gold did his best to conceal his embarrassment over his faux pas of making the statement before confirming his audience.

"Ah, yes, she mentioned that she'd traded for some old items of her mother's."

"A few small things," Gold said, not intending to go into further detail. "So, how can I help you today, Mr. Gibbons? As you're aware, the ship carrying the items you desire isn't due into port until Monday. The captain expects to be in the harbor around noon should fair winds prevail."

"Yes, I'm aware of that delay. I'm actually here for something else, specifically some assistance with a particular potion…," Walsh informed him as he reached into the right hand pocket of his sport coat, withdrawing a folded slip of paper that he slid across the glass countertop to Gold. "Think you can put that together for me?"

The pawn shop owner picked up the paper warily, slowly unfolding it to see what was being requested of him. "I believe I have all of the ingredients for this but whatever do you need it for?"

"That is my business," Walsh replied with haughty tone. "Your business is to make it for me, right?" Gold found himself reminded of his conversation earlier that week when he'd assured Emma that his dealings with Walsh were strictly business. Clearly word had reached Gibbons who was now throwing it back at him. "How long will it take?" Walsh asked to snap Gold back to the present.

"If I have everything required, I can have it to you in about an hour. Let me take a quick gander at my storeroom."

"Please do. I'll wait."

Gold vanished behind the heavy fabric divider while Walsh waited impatiently to learn if the potion could be completed in a timely manner. The shopkeeper was out of sight for less than two minutes when he returned with his response. "I do have all of the necessary ingredients. The potion will be ready for you in an hour."

"Perfect. I guess I'll go take Emma up on her breakfast offer while I wait," Walsh grinned. "See you in an hour."

Gold stood silently behind the counter as Walsh exited his shop. He'd made many potions for Gibbons over the years they'd been doing business together, but this latest request had him puzzled. It was unusual, even for Gibbons, but business was business.

* * *

Elsewhere in Storybrooke, ( _at least he hoped he was still in Storybrooke_ ) Killian Jones had awakened in near total darkness. His last recollection was of walking a very tipsy Emma to the Sheriff's station then returning to the Jolly Roger - but how long ago had that been? There was no way to know if it was day or night or whether minutes or hours had passed. He vaguely recalled a choking sensation that he might have dismissed as a dream were it not for the lingering ache in his neck.

He knew he was no longer aboard his ship as there was nothing familiar to any of his senses - no gentle rocking and swaying on the bobbing waves nor any scent of marine air or teakwood. No, wherever he was, it was dank and dark. There was no light filtering in through any crack in the stone or cement walls of this chamber and there was a musty, earthy odor to his surroundings.

_Where the hell was he?_

Using the nearest wall both for support and to gain his bearings, Killian pushed himself upright, immediately realizing that he was missing something - his hook. He knew he'd been wearing it when he'd left Emma but now its familiar weight wasn't there. He still wore the brace that secured it yet the prosthetic implement itself had been removed.

A renewed vulnerability washed over him as he inched his way along the wall in the inky blackness yet he was determined to take stock of this prison. His hand felt for any recess or crack that might signify a possible exit as he made his way to the chamber's first corner. He continued moving to his right along the second wall discovering that it was little more than an arm-span distance between the corners. Whatever this awful hole was, it was narrow.

The third wall proved to be only slightly longer than the second which provided him a rough estimate of the room's dimensions - approximately six or seven feet wide and perhaps nine or ten feet wide. It would be about the size of a small storage room or closet - or even an actual prison cell.

But at least there was some hope. As he reached the next bend, his hand came in contact with wood. A door frame. A doorway. At least if the room had a way in, there was a chance he could find a way out, although that might prove a tad more difficult without his hook. His hand surveyed the frame and door in search of a key hole or some type of locking mechanism but he found neither. Whatever purpose this chamber served, it was secured from outside which left him with the chilling realization that it just might be a prison cell and he was its unfortunate occupant.

Questions flooded his brain as his psyche tried to make sense of his situation. Where the hell was he and how the bloody hell did he get here? He didn't remember leaving the Jolly Roger, at least not willingly. He'd sensed no one else on deck with him and a skirmish would certainly have drawn the attention of his crew.

Someone had brought him here and locked him away in this miserable, lonely pit, but who? He'd barely been in this port for a week but had he unexpectedly crossed someone unwittingly? There was so much he needed to know…

"Hello?" he shouted in the direction of the sealed door, unsure if anyone would even be listening. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

Hearing nothing except the echo of his own voice and the pounding of his heart, Killian slumped against the nearest wall. He knew he needed to think this through and to conserve his energy. There was no indication of any water or provisions left here for him so either his captor planned to bring him sustenance or he was intended to slowly starve to death - the latter being an option he wasn't prepared to consider.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to preface this chapter with a couple of warnings. First, this chapter ran really long. There's a lot of action that takes place in a short span of time so rather than make it too choppy, I just allowed the sections to flow. Second is a trigger warning for a mildly violent scene that closes the chapter. It's not graphic but if it isn't your thing, the events will be explained in the next chapter.
> 
> So, we're going to pick up right where we left off: Emma has just gotten an earful about her family history from Mr. Gold and took possession of the items her mother sold to the shady pawnbroker years earlier. She's anxious to see what's there, hoping she'll discover what drove her mother away.

Her first cup of Granny's super-strength blend coffee was nearly drained before Emma remembered the primary reason she'd come here - food. An angry growl from her gut served as a staunch reminder so she immediately flagged Ruby over to the corner booth in the rear of the diner and ordered a plate of scrambled eggs and wheat toast with butter. Ruby delivered the order to the kitchen and returned to warm up Emma's coffee while she waited for her breakfast to be prepared. The bubbly waitress tried to make a little bit of small talk, but it was obvious that her deputy friend was quite distracted.

Emma had wasted little time perusing her mother's long-hidden belongings. The moment she'd slid into the isolated booth, she had set the two unexamined books to the side, deciding to delve into the mysterious cardboard box first. She anxiously peeled away the layers of clear packaging tape, wishing she'd brought a pocket knife with her because the butter knife on the table wasn't particularly helpful. Once the tape was finally off, she unfolded the flaps, eager to discover what lay within.

Leaning over the box to get a better view of the contents, she could now see that they were mostly unsurprising. There was a porcelain figurine that didn't appear particularly valuable, two large crystals that appeared to be either quartz or amethyst (if she had to guess) and some jewelry. She'd not gotten very far in her study of crystals and the role they played in witchcraft but she knew they'd likely been highly prized at one time due to their quality.

She lifted both crystals from the box, realizing that they accounted for most of the box's weight and that they were mesmerizingly beautiful. The faceted sides were sharp and the clarity was nearly flawless. She doubted Gold had given her mother anything near their value but now they were hers and Emma intended to treasure them and their power.

For now though, she placed them atop the books so she could examine the various pieces of jewelry which consisted of a beaded bracelet, two rings and a cameo pendant with a gold chain. She picked up the two rings first seeing that one was a very heavy gold man's ring topped with a large, bezel-set garnet and the second was a squared off silver ring with inlaid onyx. She couldn't begin to speculate on the stories behind the two rings or how they'd ended up in this box, but there was no doubt that they were expensive.

Dropping the rings back inside the cardboard box, she brought out the bracelet and pendant next. The bracelet was strung with alternating round onyx and gold tone beads and was held together with a golden clasp. It was pretty, but Emma didn't sense that it was anything special. She last turned her attention to the pendant which featured a cameo carved from mother of pearl that still possessed some of its original luster even after all of these years. As she held it in her hand, she found that there was a seam running all around the oval pendant, discovering that it was a locket.

Her thumbnail found the tiny latch on the right hand side and as she flicked it, a tiny gasp escaped from her mouth when the halves fell open. One side of the locket housed a miniature photograph of their family - a photo that had probably been taken not long after Emma's birth as she was just a tiny infant cradled in her mother's arms. A tear started to well in her eye as she stared at the images of her father's smiling face and the goofy grin on the young, tow-headed David. Unless they'd been faking it well, this was a picture-perfect image of a happy family.

_So what had gone wrong?_

Remembering that she was in public, Emma placed all of the items back inside the box and closed up the flaps before she became an emotional mess. She took a moment to glance over the books before her food arrived, finding that one was a history of witchcraft in New England - probably a good read for later but nothing that was drawing that personal attachment like the objects in the box had. The second one was far more interesting though - leather-bound and sealed with a clasp that was locked. Was this a journal or diary of some kind?

Temptation loomed to open the leather-bound volume right away, but Emma wisely decided against it just as Ruby plopped a plate in front of her. "Breakfast is served," the giddy waitress announced with a gesture towards the diner's entrance, "but isn't that your friend over there?"

Emma glanced up from her stash of goodies that were spread all over the table, feeling her cheeks flushing as she noticed the man about to enter the restaurant. "Oh, yeah, it is," she responded as she hurriedly stacked the box and books to make more room on the table top. "I was hoping he'd join me for breakfast after we ran into each other outside Gold's shop."

"Well then, I'll bring another mug and a full pot of coffee for the two of you," Ruby offered with a sly wink. "I'm sure the two of you would like a bit of privacy…"

"It's just breakfast, Rubes," Emma reminded her friend, shaking her head as Walsh stepped through the doorway. He craned his neck, scanning the room to see where Emma was seated as she waved to him and shooed Ruby back to the kitchen.

"I'm glad you were able to make it," Emma greeted him as he sat down on the padded vinyl bench opposite her. "Were you able to find out any new information about your shipment?"

"Not much yet. I have to go back in about an hour, after Mr. Gold reaches out to some of his connections. Things are looking promising though."

"But that means you'll be leaving town soon," she commented with a frown furrowing her lips.

"Not for a few days yet," he insisted, "and even then, I have no need to hurry back to Boston. My client will be out of town all next week…"

"Well, then - that helps…," she smiled, ready to say something else just as Ruby materialized at their booth to drop off a stoneware mug and a stainless steel coffee pot.

"What can I get for you, hon?" Ruby asked Walsh to interrupt Emma's train of thought.

"I'm honestly not all that hungry. How about just some toast this morning?" he replied.

"No problem. White, wheat or rye?" the waitress asked for clarification, noticing that Emma was glaring at her to hurry up.

"I'll take rye, please - with lots of butter."

"You got it. 'Back in a jif…," Ruby said with a huge smile. Emma shoved a corner of her toast into her mouth as Ruby sauntered away since it was easier (and far less painful) than biting her tongue. Maybe having Walsh meet her here for breakfast wasn't the best idea after all.

"Ugh, I completely forgot what I was going to say before she came over to take your order," Emma sighed.

"It's alright. I'm sure it will come back to you before we're done with breakfast."

"I guess… It will probably depend on how many more interruptions we get." Emma gave a sideways glance in the general direction of her waitress friend. "Ruby can be a little overwhelming at times. She thinks she's the town's unofficial matchmaker."

"Is she?" Walsh chuckled. "Is that what she thinks we are? A match?"

"Probably… We used to be, right? Is that what we're supposed to be?"

"I suppose it's a possibility…," he replied, pausing before adding "if that's something you want? Is that something you want?"

"I'm honestly not sure what I want, Walsh…," she began, her voice trailing off as she felt her cell phone vibrating from inside her jacket pocket. "Hang on a second… Let me see who this is…" Withdrawing her phone, she was somewhat surprised to see Graham's name emblazoned across the screen. "Graham? Wonder what he's calling me for? He knows it's my day off…" She chose to ignore the call and let it ring into her voicemail but mere seconds later, the display lit up once again with another call from her fellow deputy. "I'm so sorry… If he's being this persistent, it must be important. I've got to take this…"

"It's fine, Emma. I understand. Duty calls."

"I'll be right back," she promised, sliding across the vinyl seat as she answered the call. "Graham? What's up? You know I'm off today…," she said in greeting while ducking into the hallway leading to the restrooms for a little bit of privacy.

"I'm sorry, Em. I know it's your day off and that you're nursing a hangover but there's a guy here at the station who's looking for you and insists on talking only to you."

"Really? Who is it?"

"He said his name is William Smee, but that's all he'll tell me. He's really agitated and wants to speak to you."

"Mr. Smee?" What could he want with her? "I wonder what's going on… I'm just over at Granny's. I'll be over in a few minutes."

"You actually know this guy?" Graham asked incredulously.

"He's one of the crew members from the ship I was sent to the other day to investigate that drunk and disorderly…" Graham didn't need to know more at this moment.

"Oh, okay then. He's really worked up but I'll try to keep him calm, if I can." Emma disconnected the call before she heard all of Graham's statement, walking briskly back to the table to gather her belongings. "Walsh - I am so sorry. There's something going on over at the station and Graham needs my help. I'm gonna owe you a rain check."

"What's going on? Nothing serious, I hope…"

"I don't really know but I'll call you later when it's all sorted out." She picked up the stacked books and cardboard box as she fished a few dollar bills out of her jeans pocket. "This should cover breakfast, not that I got to eat most of it…" She took one last gulp of coffee and retrieved her remaining slice of toast. At least it was portable.

"Okay, call me when you're free," he instructed. "We need to address the direction our conversation was headed…"

"That we do. I don't know how long this will take though so good luck with Gold. Hope he gets you some answers."

"I know he will," Walsh assured her as she scurried towards the door, adding a comment to himself once she was out of earshot. "He knows what's good for business…"

* * *

Emma was still chewing the last bit of her toast when she arrived at the Sheriff's station, wishing that she would have had Ruby put the rest of her coffee in a to go cup as she swallowed the dry bread. Oh, well, she thought as she pushed open the door to find the Jolly Roger's first mate pacing in front of Graham's desk while ringing his knit cap between his hands.

"Deputy Swan!" Smee's face lit up as he saw her step through the doorway. "I wasn't sure where I could turn and then I thought of you…"

"What's going on, Mr. Smee?" she asked as she allowed the door to swing closed behind her while she approached the anxious sailor.

"It's the Captain, Ma'am… He's gone missing…"

"Missing?" Emma was honestly stunned by his announcement. "Are you sure? Maybe he just went off to explore the town or something?"

"No, no… He's definitely missing. I heard him return last night, a few hours after he'd left saying he was going to meet you, but he didn't join the crew this morning to oversee the AM duties like he normally does. Cap'n's an early riser, Ma'am. He's always there to oversee the crew, so I went to check his quarters to see if he was feeling unwell, but he wasn't there. His bunk hadn't even been slept in and as I returned topside, I also found his cell phone lying on the deck not far from the hatch. Cap'n wouldn't have just left without it…"

"You saw this missing Captain last night?" Graham asked her in hopes of clarifying both the timeline and the potential nature of the relationship. Meeting someone late at night hinted that there was certainly more to this than a casual acquaintance from the earlier investigation. "Wait - is that who you got drunk with last night?"

"Yes, I was with Captain Jones last night," she stated, glaring at Graham and letting him know with her icy stare that she didn't like what he was implying. "We took a walk down to the park after I had an argument with Regina, had a couple of drinks and then he walked me back here before returning to his ship."

"Okay then… So Mr. Smee, you're certain that your Captain did return to the ship last night?" Graham continued his line of questioning, unfazed by Emma's ire. He didn't really care if his queries made his co-worker squirm a bit. If there really was a missing person here in Storybrooke, their job was to gather enough information to find that person.

"Oh, yes," Smee replied. "He returned sometime after midnight. I heard the clunking of his boots on the deck. After years of serving together on a small ship, you learn to recognize certain sounds…"

"You know the sound of every crew member's boots?" Graham asked the first mate curiously.

"Well, no, not everyone, but the Cap'n has a very particular gait. And his boots have a metal tap on the toe that he tends to drag sometimes…"

"Alright then, I suppose we can establish that Captain Jones returned to the ship, but you didn't hear him leave? Did you hear anyone else up on deck?"

"No, Sir. Not either. I only heard the Captain. I just assumed that he went down the hatch to his quarters and went to sleep, at least until I found his bunk empty this morning."

"So, if no one else was up on that deck and no one saw or heard Jones leave the ship, where the hell did he go?" Emma wondered. "Something isn't adding up…"

"I agree," Graham added. "Mr. Smee, aside from the incident earlier this week caused by your fellow sailor, did anyone on the ship, and specifically, your Captain, have any run-ins with anyone here in town?"

"No one that I know of," Smee responded. "We've only been in this port a few days so I can't imagine that the Cap'n would have run afoul of anyone in that short time."

"Well, thankfully, Storybrooke has a magical advantage so there may be a way for us to locate him quickly," Emma told him as she placed her armload of her mother's things onto her desk to free up her hands. She fished her cell phone from her pocket as she asked Smee an additional question. "Mr. Smee, do you think you could get us a personal item belonging to Captain Jones so that we could try a locator spell?"

"Oh, yes. Of course. What do you need?" Smee asked.

"A piece of clothing or maybe an object that he touches regularly," she suggested.

"I can think of a few things. I'll go see if I can find them."

"Graham, do you think you could give Mr. Smee a ride down to the harbor?" she queried. "We can get this done a lot faster…"

"And why can't you?" Graham countered.

"Because I need to make arrangements to get everything started so we can attempt this spell… Unless you'd like to call Regina Mills on a Saturday morning?" Emma replied, offering her phone to the other deputy.

"Come right this way, Mr. Smee," Graham stated, grabbing his keys from the desktop as he leapt to his feet.

* * *

Emma couldn't be certain if Regina was pandering to her after last night's debacle or if she was agreeing to help out of genuine concern. Either way, the mayor instructed Emma to meet her at the vault in half an hour with an item belonging to Captain Jones so they could attempt a locator spell. Emma thanked her and placed a quick call to Graham before heading to Storybrooke cemetery, requesting that Graham bring whatever Mr. Smee found to the graveyard.

Her interrupted breakfast was forgotten as she dashed out of the station's rear door, taking the shortcut through the alley to get to the cemetery which was three blocks away. Graham was already awaiting her in the parking area, casually leaning against the front fender of the Sheriff cruiser. He was clutching a leather pouch that she speculated contained the object Smee collected but Emma could tell from his body language that he wasn't particularly comfortable with this rendezvous location. Graveyards clearly weren't his thing.

With no time for Graham's hang-ups, she retrieved the pouch from him, barely acknowledging his grumblings that he was calling David. She dashed across the cemetery grounds to the mausoleum and then descended the narrow staircase into the vault below. She had expected to find only Regina awaiting her so she was somewhat surprised to see Zelena's face when she rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps. The redheaded Mills sister was stirring something Emma couldn't make out on the prep table but Emma had to venture further into the vault to locate Regina. The younger sister was in the main chamber, drawing two intersecting, double-ended arrows over the inlaid pentacle on the marble floor using an aerosol can of bright white spray chalk. The arrows were clearly intended to be directional but Emma saw nothing else to indicate how they would help locate Killian.

"Emma, do you have something that belongs to the missing man?" Zelena asked, turning away from her concoction. We have everything else just about ready."

"Yeah, right here," Emma replied, raising the leather pouch.

"Great. Let's see what we have to work with…," Zelena wondered as Emma dug into the bag and retrieved two vastly different items - Killian's prosthetic hand and a four-inch diameter nautical compass with a shiny brass casing.

"Is that a _hand_?" Regina scowled, her nose crinkling in disgust.

"A prosthetic one," Emma explained, rolling her eyes at Regina's disrespectful reaction. "It belongs to Captain Jones. He's an amputee. There's also a compass here."

"We'll try the compass," Regina stated, extending her right palm so that Emma could pass the object to her. "It's less creepy."

"Says the woman who keeps a stash of magical books and potions in a vault beneath her dead parents' tomb…," Emma said snidely but Regina ignored her remark. The mayor carried the compass to the center of the intersecting arrows and placed it directly at their confluence.

"Let's see if this will work…," Regina began, her wand appearing in her grasp as she flicked her wrist. She hovered the tip of her wand above the compass as she recited the spell from memory. " _Spirits awaken and endow, bring alive this object now. Guide us where these arrows crossed. Help us find the one who's lost._ " Regina tapped the surface of the compass twice with the wand and then took a few steps backward as she waited for the magic to begin.

"Did it work?" Emma asked Zelena in a whisper, but the redhead simply lifted her index finger to her lips and shushed the deputy. Emma wasn't about to be hushed though and continued with another question. "How long does it typically take for something to happen - or to not happen?" Since she'd began studying magic, she'd gotten used to the fact that reactions weren't always instant, but she'd thought that a locator spell would give them a speedier response. Right now, it didn't appear that anything was happening - at least not until the compass began to spin wildly atop the chalk markings. "Oh…"

"Everyone, stay back," Regina warned. "There's no telling where it will go."

The compass continued to spin in the center of the crossed arrows for a few more seconds before skittering across the marble, coming to rest near one of the pentacle points. Doubting that she was going to find Killian next to a huge pentacle, Emma was still skeptical about what information this display was providing them.

"You're going to have to help me out here," Emma began, pointing to the compass on the floor. "What is this supposed to be telling us?"

"The center of the crossed arrows represents this location, our starting point. Like the arrows on that compass, these indicate cardinal directions - north, south, east and west. The missing person can be found where that plot indicates," Regina stated.

"All I see is the point of a pentacle on a marble floor," Emma stated the obvious. "What does it correspond to?"

"I can help with that," Zelena spoke up. "Here, let me show you." Zelena brandished her own wand and with a wave. " _Appereat tabula!_ " With a swish of her wand, a huge, transparent map of Storybrooke was emblazoned across the chamber floor and as Regina had stated, the cemetery lined up perfectly with the crossed arrows on the floor. Seeing the map presented an entirely new set of challenges though as the location indicated by the spot Killian's compass had stopped was part of Storybrooke town limits that Emma wasn't at all familiar with.

"That's where he is?" Emma asked, trying to find any clues on the map. "That's quite a ways from Main Street. What's out there?"

"Mostly just dense forest," Regina replied. "There aren't many people who live out that way, but if I remember correctly, one of Robin's poker buddies has a cabin out in the woods not far from there. Maybe he could give us some more insight into who or what might be out there in those woods?"

"Seems like it would be a good place to hide someone you don't want found," Emma commented. "I need to get out there and start searching…"

"By yourself?" Regina scoffed. "Even using magic to help guide you, you're still going to need a search party and a couple of good tracker dogs. The spell might have narrowed down the search area, but that's still more than a square mile…"

"Then we need to get started… We don't know where exactly he is or what condition he might be in… We don't even know if he's alive…" Emma's anxious ramblings began to raise Regina's curiosity. Why was it that this was seeming less and less like just any missing person case?

"The spell wouldn't have given us a location if he were dead or if he were outside of Storybrooke's borders," Regina assured her as she was getting an indication that Captain Jones meant more to Emma than she was letting on. "You do seem awfully worried about this visiting captain…"

"I'm not allowed to be concerned about a missing person?" Emma countered defensively.

"Not like this. This isn't just any missing person. What's your connection to this guy?" Regina demanded.

"I like him, okay?" Emma snapped back. "We've gone out a couple of times and he's a really nice guy who doesn't deserve whatever might be happening to him!"

"Then let's do this right," Regina stated. "We'll find him. Right now, let me go upstairs and call Robin and in the meantime, I suggest you call David so that he can start pulling a team together."

"Fine," Emma grumbled, feeling even more frustrated than before. "I just wish these locator spells would be a little more specific, like maybe give us some GPS coordinates or something? You'd think magic could be a little more in sync with modern technology…"

"Magic can help with a lot of things, but it isn't science," Regina reminded her student. "And while it may have a few drawbacks, I'm certainly not ready to give it up. Are you?"

"I know it isn't scientific and no, I have no plans to stop studying magic, but it just seems to me that if you can cast a spell to find true love, or to locate a missing person, things should be a lot more specific…," Emma lamented, her choice of words perking Zelena's ear.

"I don't know about using magic to find love," Zelena commented. "Despite years of practicing, I don't know that I'd trust it. We were brought up being told that magic has a price so I've always shied away from using it for anything that personal."

"I had a conversation with Mr. Gold earlier today and he told me the same thing," Emma told her. "He gave me the story of the town's history - and the price our great-grandparents paid for this town to have magic."

"I was wondering how much you knew about Storybrooke's sordid past…," Regina spoke up. "So, you know about the warlock and his challenges?"

"Yes," Emma replied, "and I know that my mother was the warlock's last opponent. Mr. Gold said something about her being tricked into making a choice, but either he didn't know or he just didn't elaborate on what that choice was."

"From the stories I remember my mother telling us, her sister, your mother, had to choose the man she loved. She had two men in her life at the time - your father and another guy who'd swept her off her feet. She had to choose between them and I guess she picked wrong because the warlock stole her powers," Zelena explained, but her tale wasn't sitting easy on Emma's stomach. The deputy fell silent as all of the implications swirled through her overloaded brain. "Emma, are you alright? You look as though you're going to be ill…"

"Maybe…," Emma squeaked out in a barely audible whisper. "Did my mother cast a spell to help her find her true love?" The question was really rhetorical. She already knew the answer in her heart and as the pieces fell into place, she realized the increased importance of locating Killian Jones.

"Honestly, I don't really remember," Zelena replied, "but it wouldn't surprise me based on what my mother told us. Why do you want to know?"

Emma dodged Zelena follow-up question for a moment as she had more of her own that kept rolling off of her tongue. "What was the real reason my mother left Storybrooke? I know it wasn't just because she lost her powers, so what was it?"

"Our mother said it was because of you," Regina stated very matter-of-factly, the accusation sounding harsher than she intended as she watched the color drain from Emma's face. "I didn't mean it like that…"

Emma had already made the connection in her mind, she had just needed one of her cousins to confirm it. "Because I had magic…" She was suddenly nauseous at the realization and her own actions were already haunting her. "She left because she didn't want me to be the warlock's next victim, but I think it may already be too late…"

* * *

During his misspent youth, Killian Jones had languished in many a dark prison cell, but none as abysmal as this solitary hell hole was feeling. Despite his own dire circumstances, he feared more for Emma. Had the person who had abducted him and tossed him into this solitary pit also taken her? If so, where was she being held? Was she in another lonely cell like this one or perhaps somewhere even worse?

His surest way of tracking time had been the growth of his own facial hair. His stubble hadn't yet filled in to a beard so he could estimate that his imprisonment hadn't been more than a day. His stomach protested with hunger and his throat was parched from thirst but that gave him enough information to be able to theorize that he'd been here between twelve and twenty-four hours, not that he could be entirely certain.

He had chosen to alternate sitting and standing, pacing about the tiny chamber in the darkness to keep his muscles from weakening should there be some opportunity for escape. He didn't want to sleep yet, but boredom was tiring him physically and mentally. What did his captor intend to do with him? Hell, he didn't even know who his captor was. Who had he offended?

Killian had just stood back up, pressing his back into the wall to straighten his spine when an eerie sensation descended upon him. The atmosphere in the room changed as he discovered that the breath he was hearing wasn't his own.

He wasn't alone in the room any longer, yet he'd heard no one enter.

"Who's there?" Killian demanded.

"I wondered how long it would take you to realize you weren't alone," a voice chuckled. "Very astute, Captain."

"What the bloody hell is this? Who are you?"

"I just had to change up the game a bit," the voice deepened to a sinister hiss. "Emma was getting too close to choosing you and I just can't let that happen…"

"What do you mean choosing me? What did you do to Emma?" Killian wanted to temper his anxiety but he was allowing fear to get the best of him.

"She's fine. She's a tad confused as to where you've gone, but she's unharmed."

"And she had better stay that way!" The threat was probably empty, but Killian couldn't stop the excited utterance

"As if you're in a position to argue," the voice reminded him. "But anyway, I assure you, I have no intention to hurt her. All I want are her powers and you were getting in my way."

"So that's why you abducted me?"

"It seemed to be a logical choice at the time, but a friend of mine provided me with a much more effective option…"

Killian didn't like the sound of any of this. "More effective option for what?"

"You know, this hook of yours is an interesting implement," the voice taunted, ignoring Killian's query. "You use it as a substitute for a missing limb and yet it's as sharp as any weapon I've handled…"

He didn't sense the figure drawing closer to him, yet Killian could feel the pressure of the cold, sharp steel against the tender skin at his throat, grazing just enough to draw a faint trickle of blood. _Bloody hell - what sort of game was this?_ He wasn't going to get an actual answer to that unspoken question but the intent was made clear with a searing pain that suddenly radiated from his left shoulder. His hand instinctively went to the site of the wound, desperate to remove whatever was impaling his flesh and feeling the familiar shape of his own hook.

He fought to keep his eyes open. He'd been stabbed before and didn't believe he was bleeding that profusely. Unless his attacker had struck an artery, which would likely be bleeding far worse, he shouldn't be this lightheaded. He shouldn't be losing consciousness yet his knees buckled beneath his weight and he slid back to the floor.

"Have a nice slumber, Captain," was the last thing Killian remembered hearing as he collapsed and succumbed to blackness.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had planned to have this chapter completed a lot sooner than this but a stressful trip to Texas and a sinus infection threw those plans out the window. I finally got this all done and it picks up inside Regina's vault after Emma's statement that it might already be too late, implying that the third challenge may have begun. As they prepare to search for the missing Killian Jones, Emma is going to have to deal with her decision to cast the spell and uncovers a piece of the past.

"What do you mean _it might already be too late?_ " an agitated Regina queried as the vault fell under an eerie silence.

Emma flushed with guilt, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach and hyper-critical of her earlier decisions. She slumped against a bare chamber wall as her head struggled to process the potential ramifications of her actions. "I think I may have inadvertently fallen into the third challenge…" she confessed as a multitude of thoughts bombarded her. _Was history about to repeat itself? Had she just set herself upon the same path as her mother?_ "What the hell have I done?" she sighed, squeezing her eyes closed in a foolhardy attempt to make this all go away.

" _What_?" Regina pressed, needing a lot more information to even begin to figure out what was going on. "Emma - just what the hell did you do? And what makes you think that it has anything to do with the warlock's challenges?"

"I cast a spell the other night," Emma stated, not that her answer was going to give any clarification to her fear. "I think that spell might have triggered the third challenge…"

"What sort of spell?" Zelena questioned, her curiosity piqued as to how a novice witch like Emma would have stumbled upon a spell powerful enough to garner the warlock's attention. Yes, Emma's mother had been the last victim, but Ava had been a seasoned practitioner, more worthy of a battle. Choosing Emma would almost be cheating for such a powerful warlock.

"It was a love spell, okay?" Emma replied defensively, although now cringing with embarrassment over how ridiculous it sounded.

"You cast a love spell?" Regina scoffed, but Emma cut the mayor off before she'd allow herself to be berated.

"Yes - a love spell!" Emma snapped back at her cousin. "Laugh all you want, but I knew I wanted someone in my life… I live with my brother and Mary Margaret and honestly, some days it's like living with Snow White and her Prince Charming and yeah, I got a little jealous. I just want what they have - what you and Robin have… I just wanted my own true love and maybe taking a shortcut was too good to be true, but when I stumbled across that spell, I knew I had to cast it. Maybe it was a bad idea in retrospect, but I did it."

"So what about it makes you think that the spell might have been a part of the warlock's games?" Zelena asked. "Can you show it to me?"

"The whole issue with my mother having to make a choice…," Emma responded, scurrying back into the anteroom towards the towering bookshelves. "Let me show you…" She quickly located the volume she'd used and carried it to the potion table, dropping it rather indelically so she could flip through the pages searching for the specific spell. Despite her recollection of how many pages into the book it had been, Emma couldn't locate it. "What the hell? I can't find it… I know this is the right book - Zelena used it for one of our lessons in incantations a while back, but now, the spell isn't here… I don't understand… I swear it was here…"

"It's alright," Zelena offered her some comfort, but Emma could hear the faint air of disdain behind her words. "Do you remember what it said?" She hoped to garner enough information to determine what Emma had potentially conjured, but before Emma could answer, Regina unleashed a tirade.

"What were you even doing with those books?" Regina demanded. "I warned you not to get into any of those advanced spellbooks. That one's written entirely in Latin!"

"And I've been studying Latin!" Emma angrily retorted.

"Ladies!" Zelena shouted, throwing up her hands in frustration. "Bickering isn't going to get us anywhere. Let's just try to figure out what happened…" She returned her attention to Emma and asked her again, "Emma, do you remember what the spell said?"

"I think so," Emma replied, taking a deep breath to calm herself while she thought about the exact wording of the spell. "It was a short one… _Verus amor occurant,_ which means to encounter true love. _Verus amor reveles,_ to discover true love. _Verus amor agnocis._ This was the only phrase I wasn't really sure of. I didn't have an exact translation for _agnocis_ , but everything else fit so I didn't question it. The last phrase was _Confirmare verus amor_ which I know means confirm true love."

"So you went ahead and cast a spell without knowing what the whole thing meant?" Regina questioned, shaking her head condescendingly at Emma's impetulence.

"It was only one word. I was only unsure of that single word and within the overall context, I didn't see it as a problem at the time," Emma replied.

"The problem is that single word changes the context of the spell. It means identify. The phrase is _identify true love_ and it takes this from a simple spell to discover true love to one that requires you to be able to distinguish your actual true love," Regina explained.

"So, then it really is a choice…," Emma sighed. "That's why they both showed up in my life. "I'm supposed to choose between them…"

"Both who?" Zelena queried. "I know that our missing sailor is one of them, but who's the other?"

"He's an old friend from Boston, well, technically, an old lover. I ran into him the same day I met Captain Jones and I didn't really think much of it at the time. It was a bizarre coincidence, that's all I thought it was, and I went out to dinner with both of them."

"And you have feelings for both?" Zelena asked, to which Emma nodded.

"Okay, so then if the spell is to be believed and if, by chance, this is the same spell that led your mother into the warlock's challenge, one of them is your true love and the other is a fake that will allow the warlock to steal your powers." Regina made it all sound so simple but Emma was struggling with the complexity of the mess she'd unexpectedly created. "Now do you understand why we wanted you to learn more about magic and its consequences before you learned about our family and all of the proverbial skeletons in the closet? You needed a lot more knowledge to prepare you, but you got too curious for your own good!"

"Regina, enough!" a man's voice boomed from the stairway behind Emma. "We should have told her the truth from the beginning." Even though she already knew his voice, Emma was still slightly surprised to find David descending the steps. "We're all equally culpable, so let's just figure out a way to help Emma. If this really is another challenge, you know as well as I do that the entire town will be affected, so we all need to work together."

"Fine," Regina relented with a huff. "But how are we supposed to help Emma figure out who her true love is, especially if one of the potential suitors is missing?"

"By first finding that missing captain. I've got calls in to organize a search team, provided I have a valid area to search," David responded.

"Do you think his disappearance has anything to do with the choice I have to make?" Emma asked anxiously. "Do you think that maybe the warlock had Killian abducted because he's really my true love?"

"Possibly," Zelena stated before frowning and adding: "Of course, it could also be a ploy to make you pity him so he can garner favor…"

"Well, that's encouraging…," Emma sighed disparagingly. "But David's right - we still need to find Killian first. The locator spell indicated a spot out in the woods northeast of town."

"It's out near John's cabin somewhere," Regina explained. "I was going to call Robin to see if he and John can shed some light on what's out there."

"Sounds good," David replied. "I'll call Belle and see if she can locate any property records out in that area. Maybe that will turn up some link to someone tied to this abduction. We'll find this captain, Emma, but can I ask you a question - where's the other guy?"

"We were having breakfast together when Graham called," Emma responded. "I really owe him an apology…"

"Don't hate me for this, but as Sheriff, you know I have to ask - do you think he might have had any involvement in Captain Jones' disappearance?"

Emma honestly hadn't anticipated that question. "Walsh?" she asked incredulously. "He and Killian don't know each other. Why would you think he would be involved in this?"

"You don't think jealousy could be a motive?" David asked her.

"I can't imagine why it would," Emma answered. "As I said, they don't know each other."

"Do you know where Walsh was last night?" was David's next question.

"No," Emma responded, now beginning to doubt her own resolve. "I didn't see him last night. After our blow-up here, I went straight to Killian…"

"And that apparently upset someone," Regina commented.

"Well, until we know more, we're just going to treat this as a missing person case," David stated. "Emma, meet me back at the station. I'm going to check in with Leroy to see how many people he was able to round up for our search party and I still want to get in touch with Belle to see what the town records will turn up about property owners out in that neck of the woods. It may not lead us anywhere, but it certainly can't hurt. Regina, let me know what Robin and John have to say."

"I'll call Belle," Emma offered as she collected Killian's compass and prosthetic hand, shoving them back into the leather pouch Mr. Smee had provided. David nodded in agreement as Zelena spoke up.

"What else can we do to help?" Zelena wondered.

"Right now, the best thing you can do is try to find out as much as you can about the warlock and the challenge my stepmother faced. We need to learn everything we can," David told her. "Whatever you can remember from what your mother told you will help. Talk to Gold and Ingrid too. Maybe they can fill in some holes for us?"

"We'll see what we can uncover," Regina stated, although clearly not enthusiastic about the task.

"Thanks," David replied, smiling despite the seriousness of the situation. "Now, let's find Captain Jones and then we'll deal with the rest of this."

* * *

Remembering that she still needed to reclaim her car from the cemetery parking area, Emma was able to return to the station in a matter of minutes, but what she really wanted to do was drive out to the forest and start hunting for Killian. It took all of her strength not to keep driving past the station toward the woods, but she knew that they'd have more success working as a team. It was simply too much territory for a single person to cover, logic dictated that fact, but it wasn't going to make waiting for the search party to gather any easier.

She had contacted Belle, librarian and unofficial town historian, the moment she sat down at her desk, leaving a detailed message with precisely what they were needing in hopes that she'd get a response back rapidly. Despite the new developments that had occurred since she'd left the pawn shop that morning, Emma had an inkling that Belle might already be aware of some of what the deputy had requested - at least those pertaining to her mother and the warlock. Gold had already provided quite a bit more information than Emma had expected from him, but she was hoping that Belle might be a bit more forthcoming - if the younger Mrs. Gold had any additional details.

Now she found herself with too much time to kill while she awaited David's return with the search party. She'd stared blankly at her computer monitor for several seconds, trying to decide what to do next, but she was facing a stalemate. She wanted to search for more background on the warlock, but she realized no one had even given her a name. Where would she start her search if she didn't know the damned warlock's name? She toyed with the thought of calling Walsh to apologize for their interrupted breakfast, but since it was unlikely that she'd be able to reconnect with him at all today, she decided against it. She simply couldn't bring herself to dial his number because now she found herself wondering where he had been last night. Everything had suddenly become so complicated and she was feeling a fool for not recognizing that she'd fallen victim to a very clever trap.

One thing she could do with her time was to examine the one piece of evidence she had in her possession, one that she'd set aside earlier - the second book that she'd obtained from Gold this morning. The leather-bound volume that was currently occupying the upper right hand corner of her desk. Picking it up, she could find no visible markings on it that would easily identify its purpose, but the wear along the spine and covers indicated that it had been handled regularly. The conundrum came when Emma attempted to open the damned thing. There was no flap on the cover to lift, no latch or lock anywhere on the burnished leather and it had her completely baffled. How did this blasted thing open?

Unless…

A blood seal? Her mother had been a witch so perhaps she'd utilized a blood seal? If this book contained some of Ava Nolan's biggest secrets as Emma suspected it would, her mother would likely have thought to protect them with a seal that only she or those with like blood could open. Emma had seen Regina and Zelena draw blood from their own flesh to open a bronze chest in the vault that housed several powerful amulets so the idea wasn't out of the question. It seemed that Emma would now need to do the same to break into this mysterious book.

Yanking open the top drawer on her desk, she started digging through the office supplies and random junk in search of something sharp enough to draw a little bit of blood. The best object she could find was a plastic headed push pin from the bulletin board which wasn't going to give her more than a miniscule bubble of blood but she was going to have to make due. She didn't have time to waste so push pin it would be. She lifted the pin from the drawer thinking it would probably be best to sterilize it first, especially since she didn't even know what all was in that drawer. She squeezed a dollop of hand sanitizer from the dispenser on her desktop and smeared it all over the push pin and her fingertips. Once satisfied that it was usable, she pressed the business end of the pin into the pad of her left middle finger.

A tiny crimson bead erupted to the surface of her skin and once she felt it was large enough, she drew her bloodied fingertip along the edge of the book that had the most visible wear. To her surprise and delight, the flap popped open and provided her access to the pages within. With a hint of trepidation, she raised the cover, thoughts of Pandora's Box swirling through her overloaded mind. She wasn't going to stop though as she forced herself to skim through the pages of handwritten text. She immediately recognized her mother's handwriting as she gazed upon the words that had gone unread for decades. The earliest entry was from nearly 40 years ago - the ramblings of a barely twenty year old Ava Blanchard whining about being overshadowed by older sister, Cora. The jealousy was obvious in her words. Ava envied her sister's marriage and her status - being groomed by their father to succeed him as Storybrooke's next mayor. But there was also some clear dissent between the sisters - Cora wanted to expand the town's magic and open its borders to more like beings, not just their fellow witches and warlocks. Ava voiced her disagreement, believing that the town's magic was too much of a burden, essentially a curse upon them - and that was apparently long before she'd fallen victim to the warlock.

Emma found it to be an interesting insight, especially considering what would later befall her, but since she didn't have time to read all of this now, she decided to skip ahead a few pages, landing on a journal entry that confirmed one of Emma's own suspicions. In this entry, Ava laments her loneliness and her belief that she was failing her family. Cora had just given birth to Zelena and Ava worried that she couldn't even keep a steady boyfriend. She believed that her one true love was out there but she was growing impatient and bored with her small town so she'd decided to cast a spell that would bring true love to her.

Emma could only speculate as to whether or not her mother had cast the same spell since the journal entry didn't elaborate, but she could tell by skimming through the subsequent entries that the spell seemed to be successful. Ava wrote eloquently about the two men she'd developed feelings for. Robert Nolan was the sweet widower she'd grown up with. They'd been friends since they were toddlers but as her attraction to Robert grew, Ava strangely began to fear that Robert's one true love had been his late wife, Ruth. She worried that she'd always be second, never measuring up, which began to push her towards the mysterious outsider she referred to merely as Ozzie. He was more cavalier and daring, taking her on trips to the bigger cities and showering her with the affection she craved, and she found herself gravitating towards him.

There were several more entries discussing both Robert Nolan and the man known only as Ozzie but so far, Emma found no mention of Ozzie's surname. Her mother's words did lay out her eventual decision though - believing that Robert had already found and lost his true love, Ava, she had decided that Ozzie must be the one for her and planned to seal the choice with their first passionate kiss the evening she'd written this. Emma couldn't help but think about her interactions with both Walsh and Killian where they'd shared little pecks on the cheeks over the past few days, but as of yet, no kisses on the lips. Of the two, only Walsh had expressed any outward disappointment, perhaps simply due to their prior relationship, but his reaction, even after an apology, weighed on Emma's mind as she flipped the page to her mother's next entry.

Several days must have passed between Ava's journal entries because the next one was visibly different in both content and appearance. It was written in a much sloppier script and spoke of betrayal and stupidity and of utter failure, yet surprisingly, it also spoke of hope. She wrote of choosing Ozzie, the more enigmatic of her suitors, but the moment she'd kissed him, he was gone. Vanished in a puff of grey smoke - along with her magic. She was left feeling drained, hollow and empty, but she made no attempt to hide her fault. She'd made a poor choice and fessed up to it. She'd gone to Robert and explained everything, including all of her shortcomings, and to her surprise, he'd forgiven her, going so far as to ask her to marry him right then and there. True love had won after all, but at a hefty cost.

Hyper-focused on the journal, Emma failed to hear David and Graham returning to the squad room until one of them called her name, instantly snapping her back from the 1970s to the present - and to the current challenge facing them.

"Emma? You alright there?" David asked, slightly concerned when his sister didn't respond immediately.

"Sorry, David… I just got a little caught up reading through this old journal of my mother's while I was waiting for you," she explained, closing the cover instinctively as if to protect it from prying eyes.

"Where did you find that?" David wondered.

"I got it from Mr. Gold at the pawn shop in exchange for a book of his that I retrieved for him from Regina's vault. He'd been holding on to some stuff mom had sold him for decades."

"Well, unless you're planning to continue reading, Leroy is assembling the search team he rounded up out at the farmhouse at the end of the paved stretch of Highway 3," David said. "It's as close as we're going to be able to get to the area Zelena circled on a town map. Robin and John are lending us a couple of ATVs and Graham is using his own 4x4, but most of the area will still need to be covered on foot. Have you heard anything back from Belle about properties and possible buildings out there?"

"Haven't heard from her yet," Emma replied, "but what did Robin have to say?"

"Well," David began as he unfurled the map Zelena had provided onto the top of an empty desk. "According to Robin, it's mostly dense forest out there, but he did say there are a handful of cabins scattered throughout the woods. I guess there are some people who really like living off the grid because I don't think the power lines extend that far out of town." David stabbed an index finger into the center of the circle drawn in what looked like bright red lipstick. "We'll have a team of ten, plus the three of us, available to search the indicated area. Hopefully Belle will get back to us quickly and let us know more specifics on people who might be living out there. It's a long shot to think any of the owners could be connected to Captain Jones' disappearance, but I'd still like to know what we're up against. Now, let's get stocked up on flashlights and make sure we have enough two-way radios because cell service is going to be spotty at best out there."

"Alright, let's get going then," Emma stated as she sprang to her feet. There was still a little nagging voice in her head that had her fighting conflicting feelings about Killian's role in the inevitable choice she was going to have to make, but no matter what, she still had to find him. Whatever she'd set in motion by casting that stupid spell wasn't going to stop until she'd made her decision. If this was all a part of some deranged warlock's game to steal her magical powers, Emma had no intention of giving up without a fight and when David wasn't looking, she casually tucked her wand into the inside pocket of her leather jacket and then zipped it up before heading to the stockroom David jokingly referred to as the _armory_ to gather the rest of the supplies they'd need.

_Hang in there, Killian,_ she thought to herself. _I will find you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do apologize for the lack of Killian in this chapter. My original plan had included the search and rescue in this chapter but it was pushing the word count over 7500 so I chose to move it to chapter 11. The captain will definitely be returning.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I managed to finish up this chapter before the insanity of the holiday starts and it picks up right where the last chapter left off with Emma and David heading out to search for the missing Killian Jones. My original plan had this as part of Chapter 10, but I decided to expand it and make it a stand-alone chapter. Emma's anxious to locate Killian but a surprise clue along the way may have a link to the past. PS - once again, please forgive any incorrect Latin translations in the event my cousin's college Latin is a bit off.

In her short residence here in Storybrooke, Emma had only been this far down Highway 3 once - when she had been in pursuit of an intoxicated driver who struck a pedestrian in front of the church. She knew it was a narrow, two-lane road that meandered through the farmland on the outskirts of town before asphalt transitioned to gravel approximately three miles beyond Anton's farm. She was also well aware of the rumor that a fae community existed out here amongst the trees, but Emma was convinced that story was pure fiction. Even in this magical town, sometimes it as hard to draw a line between reality and fantasy.

Halfway into their drive out to the rendezvous point, Emma's phone rang with the return call from Belle. David asked if Emma would utilize the speakerphone so that he could hear the librarian's response as well.

"Good morning, Belle," Emma answered, immediately pressing the speaker button. "Thank you so much for returning my call so quickly."

"Of course, Emma. I would have called sooner but it took me a bit to find all of the information that you asked for," Belle replied.

"No problem," David assured her. "You're right on time. We're just about to meet with the search party, but since we're going to run out of cell service soon, what were you able to find?"

"Well, there are three registered properties with structures listed in the town records. There are a couple of other parcels of land with registered owners, but since they didn't have any dwellings or other structures registered, I focused on the ones that did," Belle explained over the growing static. "I emailed you and Emma the list with what details I could locate."

"Perfect. Any idea what sort of structures we're talking about?" David asked.

"They're listed as dwellings so my guess would be cabins or small houses. All were listed as being less than 1000 square feet," Belle told him.

"That's a huge help, Belle. I'll have Emma take a look at the email since I'm driving."

"Please let me know if you need anything else. Oh, and Emma - I'm still researching what you asked about your mother. I'll let you know if I can find that answer anywhere," Belle promised.

"Thanks for everything, Belle," Emma replied as she disconnected the call, her service signal down to a single bar.

"See if you can get that email opened up before the signal disappears," David instructed, as if Emma hadn't already thought of that.

"Already on it," Emma stated as she pulled up her work email folder and found the message from with its attachment. Her phone display still showed that single bar as she managed to download the file before service vanished. "Got it!"

She waited until David eased the Sheriff cruiser to the side of the gravel road in front of the Gardner's farmhouse since the tiny screen was too difficult to read while bouncing around on the crumbling road surface. When she could finally take a look at it, she hesitated for a minute, instead surveying the field and the people gathered in it. David was already scrambling out of the car to coordinate with the search party and she recognized most of the faces. Regina's boyfriend, Robin and his best friend, John Sherwood were here and she also spotted Leroy and a couple of the other miners. Graham pulled up and parked behind the cruiser in his 4x4 that would aid them with off-road capabilities.

"What did Belle's email reveal?" David asked her as he poked his head back into the car wondering why his sister was still sitting in the passenger seat.

"I'll know in a second," she replied. "It was kinda hard to hold onto my phone, let alone read the screen, when you were bouncing us all over the place. Did you try to hit every pothole on the highway?"

"Yeah, it was intentional," David huffed. "Seriously though, before we set off out there," he pointed his index finger in the direction of the treeline, "I want to know what sort of buildings we could encounter and where they are in relation to our search area."

"Just as Belle said, there are three dwellings listed. No surprise that one of them is John Sherwood's cabin. The second is a dwelling of unknown dimensions listed as under construction. Sounds like a potentially good place to hide somebody you don't want found…" But just as Emma made that comment, her gaze fell onto the third property listing, a moderately sized dwelling of approximately 900 square feet, but it wasn't the physical description or the location that drew her attention, it was the name of the registered owner.

Ozmund Welch.

She tried to shake off the coincidence, but she couldn't. _Was there a correlation between this property's owner, Ozmund Welch, and her mother's mysterious suitor, Ozzie?_ Ava had described Ozzie as having vanished in a puff of smoke the moment she'd kissed him, but had he actually been real? Real enough to have built a cabin in the dense woods on the outskirts of Storybrooke or was the name similarity merely chance?

"Something wrong, sis?" David's question brought her back to the present. "You planning to stay in the car or are you going to get out of there and tell me about that third property?"

"I'm coming… Just had a little bit of weird deja vu."

"About searching the woods for your would-be pirate boyfriend?"

"Really, David?" Emma wasn't pleased with her brother referring to Killian as a pirate yet again. "Once and for all, he's not a pirate and no - that isn't what triggered it. This name… The third property owner listed is what caught my eye and gave me a weird feeling - someone named Ozmund Welch."

"Okay… what's so strange about that?"

"When I was leafing through mom's journal, she referred to the other man she was dating as Ozzie. He was the one she ended up choosing and caused her to lose the challenge, and of course, her powers. Ozmund. Ozzie. They sound a lot alike and it's a weird coincidence…"

"And you think there might be some correlation?"

"I don't really know," she sighed, knowing the probability was slim considering the rest of the information Belle had provided. "There's only one big problem with it - according to Belle, the structure was built and registered in the 1920s."

"I don't think your mother was really in to older men…"

"No. Certainly not based on the description she gave in her journal entries."

"Father and son maybe?" David suggested as Emma clambered out of the cruiser.

"I guess that's possible. Or it's possible that it really is just a coincidence." She tucked her phone away into her jacket pocket as she pushed the car door closed. "It's just weird…"

"Then why don't you and I take that particular property? If you've got any sort of suspicion about that property, we'll go with it."

"Okay. According to the property listing, it's located about a quarter of a mile from John's cabin. I copied all of the coordinates into my phone."

"Alright then. Let me go hand out assignments and get this search and rescue underway. That's in one of the more remote sectors so how about you go commandeer a couple of those ATVs?"

* * *

Emma had never really considered herself to be the outdoorsy type so this trek through the forests of Eastern Maine riding an all-terrain vehicle was quite out of her element. By the time they reached the edge of the Welch property, they could both see the single-story wooden frame house that, at first glance, appeared well-kept, but vacant. As they got closer to the house, they began to see signs of recent occupation. Weeds had been cleared from the dirt road to the entrance as well as from a path to a small shed beyond the house.

With a reminder from David that they couldn't enter the property without permission from the resident or a search warrant, they parked the ATVs and started surveying the perimeter. Little seemed to have changed about the premises since it had been built nearly a century ago. They saw a neat stack of firewood next to the shed but no visible power lines connected to the building. Whoever resided out here definitely enjoyed living off the grid. The windows of the cozy house were covered with decades worth of grime, making it difficult to peer into the interior. If someone was living here, cleaning their windows to allow sunlight inside wasn't a priority which led credence to the probability that it was currently uninhabited.

"Looks vacant," David said as the siblings regrouped near the front door. "But it's almost impossible to see inside."

"Something isn't right," Emma insisted. "It may look vacant, but that wood pile over there isn't overgrown with weeds. There isn't any smoke rising out of that chimney right now, but my gut says there will be signs of a recent fire."

"Kinda hard to determine that from out here," David reminded her. "And one of the neighbors could be using the wood."

"Are you serious, David? Do you really think that someone out here would want to traipse through the woods to stack wood at an abandoned house? That makes no sense whatsoever."

"Just offering up possibilities."

"Well, it's pretty obvious that the bigger possibility is that someone has been secretly living here. It's rustic, but that doesn't mean it isn't livable. I don't know if Ozmund Welch is still living out here in the boondocks, but I'm quite sure someone is."

"Don't tell me - your gut is now telling you that this would be a good place to hide someone?"

"What? You don't think so? Come on, Dave - it's in the middle of nowhere and looks abandoned… Where would you hide a person you don't want found?"

"Em - you know the rules…"

"And this is a magical town where most rules don't even apply! David, my intuition is telling me that there's more to this place than meets the eye."

"You can feel your Captain boyfriend nearby?"

"I wish my instincts were that specific," she scowled at him, "almost as much as I wished that the locator spell came with GPS coordinates. I just know that there's something very wrong here…"

David pondered her plea for a moment. As Sheriff, he was tasked with upholding the law, not breaking it, but at the same time, if Captain Jones was here, being held against his will, rescuing the missing man should take priority. It was just that it all rested on his sister's gut feelings, not actual evidence…

"Okay, okay," he relented. "If you think this place is suspicious, let's go find out. Can you get that door open or were you planning to break it down?"

"Very funny," she scoffed as she withdrew her wand from inside her jacket. "Good thing I brought this along. Pretty sure a little magic can open that lock…" With a flick of her wrist and a swish of her wand, she recited the Latin phrase to open the door. " _Recludo!"_

David led the way once the door was unlocked, inching it open cautiously as he scanned the interior with his flashlight held in his left hand and his weapon clutched in his right. Emma followed at his heels, sweeping the beam of her flashlight around what looked to be a combination living room, kitchen and dining room. The room was sparsely furnished. A faded, but garishly upholstered sofa occupied a space facing the fireplace and a matching chair with worn wooden arms sat beside it. On the opposite wall, there was a makeshift kitchen featuring a sink with an ancient water pump, an old fashioned wood-fired stove and a two door cabinet hanging over the sink. At the other end of the building from where they stood, there was a wooden table with two flanking chairs and a narrow hallway leading to two doorways.

Emma took a few steps towards the fireplace while David immediately headed to the first of the two doors in the rear of the house. Her eyes were drawn to the mantle where a set of random books sat atop it, flanked by two heavy stone bookends. She recognized a few of the titles as books she'd been forced to read in school but there were others written in languages she didn't recognize. She also instantly noticed rectangular voids amongst the dust and cobwebs as though something had been removed recently.

She held no doubt that someone had been here.

David pushed open the first of the doors off of the rear hallway revealing a small, unoccupied bedroom containing only a spartan double bed and a plain, five drawer pine chest of drawers. He discovered the second door led to a primitive bathroom with a pedestal sink and an old claw foot bath tub. There was no toilet visible so the well-maintained path behind the house meant that the shed was likely an outhouse. In neither room did he find evidence of anyone being held unwillingly. Maybe Emma's instinct had been wrong…

"There's no one here," David announced as he strolled back into the living room area.

"Someone's been here," Emma assured him, pointing to the mantle. "Stuff has been recently taken off of that mantle. There are several areas with no dust."

"So? Someone might still be using the cabin, but Emma, there isn't anyone here right now, willing or unwilling."

"We're missing something," she insisted, combing her fingers through her hair in frustration. "We have to be…"

"It's a pretty small place, Em," David reminded her as he crossed through the center of the room toward his sister. "What do you think we might possibly be missing?" Emma shrugged as she turned to face the front door, ready to concede defeat - until David stepped onto the worn, heavy wool rug in the middle of the floor. He took two strides onto the rug when Emma's alert ears picked up a distinct change in the sound his footsteps were making.

"David - do that again," she ordered as she spun to face him.

"Huh? Do what again?"

"Take a step backwards, then forward again," she instructed her bewildered brother.

"Why?"

"Just humor me," she said as David rolled his eyes skeptically. He shifted his weight back one step and then another towards Emma, this time noticing the change in tone.

"There's something hollow here," he announced, tapping his foot a few times on the spot to confirm what they'd both heard.

"That's what I thought," Emma smiled as she hurried over to David. He kicked the well-trodden rug away to reveal a recessed trap door concealed beneath. "Well, well… what do we have here?"

"A trap door," David stated the obvious. "Maybe there's a basement or an old root cellar underneath?"

"What a great place to hide someone," Emma said, repeating her earlier words. David ignored her as he stooped to grasp the reinforced edge of the plank trap door. Emma kept her weapon trained into the void below as he raised the panel but there was nothing visible in the dark space except a rough-hewn wooden staircase leading deeper into the recess. Emma directed her light into the inky blackness of the stairwell, seeing that there was a narrow panel door at the bottom which was secured with a rusty padlock. "I see a doorway down there with a lock on it."

"I'm guessing you can open that one too?"

"Piece of cake," she grinned hopefully as they descended the steps. Reaching the bottom, Emma tucked her weapon into her hip holster, trading it for her wand while David maintained a tight grip on both flashlight and weapon. Her magic made quick work of the padlock and as David kept the flashlight beam trained on the door, she eased it open. A tiny room bathed in darkness lay beyond the wooden door and Emma crinkled her nose in disgust as the wafting odors of damp cement and moldy earth assaulted her senses. But she was also smelling faint traces of something else in the mix - the coppery scent of blood and the sweetness of the rum she'd partaken of last night. "Killian?" She called out to him. "Killian? Are you here?"

She heard no response as she retrieved her own flashlight, switching it on to find the limp figure curled up on the dingy concrete floor in the center of the room.

"Killian!" she exclaimed, dropping to her knees on the dusty floor beside her unconscious friend, placing the flashlight on the floor next to her knees. He was lying on his right side and even in the dim light, she noticed something shiny was protruding from his left shoulder. She wasn't entirely sure, but it appeared to be his hook.

"Is that Captain Jones?" David queried, keeping a watchful eye on the trapdoor above as Emma checked on the person locked in the dark cellar.

"Yes and I think he's hurt. It's too damned dark in here, though." She needed more light and she remembered one of the first spells Zelena had taught her. Grabbing her wand, she held it above her head and recited " _Inlumino!"_ Instantly, a series of twinkling, floating orbs began to swirl overhead, illuminating the dank room so that she could positively identify Killian and take a preliminary assessment of his injuries.

"It's him!" she shouted to David.

"What's that sticking out of his shoulder?" David wondered, staring quizzically at the glint of shiny metal. "It looks like some kind of hook…"

"It is a hook," she stated. "Killian sometimes wears it as a prosthetic and somebody plunged it pretty deep into his shoulder." David wanted to make a comment so badly about a ship captain wearing a hook for a hand, but he held his tongue as he recognized the concern evident on his sister's face. She had carefully rolled Captain Jones into his back and was pressing her index and middle fingers against his neck. "He's unconscious. He's got a pulse, but it's weak and a little slow. His skin is pretty cool to the touch so I'm pretty sure he's been in this cold basement for hours."

"Is he breathing?"

Not sensing any rise or fall of Killian's chest, Emma leaned in closer to his face, hoping she would feel the warmth of his breath exhaled against her cheek. As she lowered her face above Killian's slightly agape mouth, for a split second, her lips brushed his and she felt a little spark. It wasn't unlike the static shock you'd get when touching a metal surface after running across a carpeted floor in your socks but in the heat of the moment, it never dawned on her that she shouldn't be experiencing any static electricity shocks down here. She mentally dismissed any thoughts of the shock as she felt a soft puff of air against her skin.

"He's breathing, but just barely," she informed David who was immediately on the radio calling for a remote rescue unit. There was no way the two of them were going to be able to maneuver an unconscious man out of that root cellar and back to the road without assistance from the other teams. "Hang in there, Killian. Help's on the way," she assured her friend as she gently caressed his stubbled cheek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So - are Ozzie and Ozmund Welch connected? And now that Emma has found Killian, is she any closer to her decision?


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly did not plan for this chapter update to take so long. I had the majority of this finished over Thanksgiving weekend, but then an awful upper respiratory infection started making its way around my household. The past few weeks have been a blur and I feel like I've been completely out of touch. I finally managed to get the haze out of my head and finish up this chapter. There are two chapters left in my outline so expect some big reveals coming! I really appreciate everyone who has read and commented along the way. Thank you so much for sticking with me with my first AU!

In such a remote area, the process of extricating the unconscious Captain Jones from the root cellar had been a time-consuming challenge. Since the ambulance wasn't off-road equipped, the paramedics had been forced to hitch a ride in Graham's 4x4 and utilize the SUV as an improvised transport vehicle. After a few tense minutes of concern as the team determined the best way to carry the wounded man from the cellar, Emma finally breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her friend loaded safely into the back of Graham's vehicle.

She would have been happier to accompany Killian to Storybrooke Hospital but since space was limited, she remained behind to return the borrowed ATVs and then returned to the Sheriff's station with David. He parked the cruiser in the alley behind the station and they entered through the rear door near the break room. David ducked into the break room to start a pot of coffee brewing, needing a caffeine boost after their busy morning. Emma continued into the squad room, dropping her gear atop her desk as she collapsed her weary body into her chair. She was exhausted, mentally and physically, but she was incredibly relieved as they'd managed to locate Killian quickly and best of all - alive. Of course, the outcome hadn't been entirely perfect as they had no idea who had abducted the captain or why, but at least they had a few leads.

After delivering Killian and the paramedics to the ambulance, Graham returned to the house in the woods to gather evidence. David wanted fresh eyes on the crime scene - to search both the main house and the root cellar, primarily tasking the deputy to find the identity of the current occupant. David would have handled it himself, but he was worried about his little sister and what her state of mind might be after finding the man she was dating unconscious and injured in a hole in the ground. And he became even more concerned when he strolled into the squad room to see her tossing items out of her desk, frantically hunting for something.

"Problem?" he asked quizzically.

"Yeah - my mother's journal… I can't find it…," she replied, emptying what remained of the top drawer onto the floor. "I put it in this drawer before we left - I know I did!"

"You sure? Maybe you put it in the bottom drawer instead?" he suggested, but it only earned him an unpleasant glare from his sister.

"I put everything in here together - the box and both books. The box is still here," she said as she lifted it for him to see. "And so is the other book, but the journal isn't anywhere to be found…"

"Well, I doubt it just vanished. You're absolutely sure it was in your desk?"

"Yes, David - I'm sure. Someone must have taken it off of my desk."

"Emma, come on… Who would break into a Sheriff's station to steal a diary?"

"I don't know. It makes no sense, but then not much that has happened this week has made any sense. What if this was just another part of our so-called warlock's sick game? What if he kidnapped Killian as a diversion so he could get his hands on that journal? He was probably afraid that mom might have left clues."

"Considering she lost, I can't imagine they'd be good clues," David quipped, but she didn't appreciate the sarcasm.

"Maybe she left clues about what not to do?" she retorted, her frustrations nearing the boiling point.

"Maybe… Look, why don't you head over to the hospital and get an update on Captain Jones' condition? I know you're worried… I'll keep searching around here and see if the book might have just been misplaced. The rest of the paperwork can wait until Graham gets back here."

"Fine. Just please, let me know immediately if you find it?"

"I'll bring it right to you. I'm sure it will turn up. Now - go. I'm trusting you to get the Captain's statement when he wakes."

"I will. Thank you, David." Wary of leaving any of her mother's other items behind lest they vanish along with the journal, Emma scooped up the box and the spellbook. She wasn't going anywhere without these now, certain that Gold had hung onto these things for a reason. She hoped David was correct and the journal was around here somewhere, but she wasn't feeling particularly positive right now. She was certain someone had taken it while they were rescuing Killian, but why? The answer to that question would likely be the key to unraveling this entire mystery.

* * *

Emma arrived at the main entrance to Storybrooke General hospital a little after 2pm and, after a brief spat with the head nurse, was directed to Killian Jones' room and provided a synopsis of his current condition. He'd needed some minor surgery to repair the damage to his wounded shoulder and he was also being treated for some mild hypothermia after being in the damp, chilly root cellar for an unknown length of time. The staff was baffled by his lingering comatose state as none of his injuries would explain why he remained unresponsive. Dr. Victor Whale, the lead physician overseeing Killian's treatment, suspected that drugs might be involved and and ordered blood samples taken and sent to the laboratory for processing. Until they had those results, everything was pure speculation.

She found herself staring at the shell of a man laying before her on the hospital bed, one who bore little resemblance to the brash Captain she'd first encountered days ago. Maybe it was the flimsy hospital garb he wore in place of his dark leathers, or perhaps it was the silence of his sharp tongue, but either way, she felt as if she were in the presence of an entirely different person. There was a vulnerability to the man in front of her and Emma couldn't help but feel a little bit of sadness for him - both for his ordeal and for the fact he had no family to be here with him.

She had already spoken to his first mate, Mr. Smee, to advise him that the Captain had been located and was currently hospitalized. The skittish little man had stopped by briefly to check in and say thank you, but hadn't stayed. In the Captain's absence, the task of running the Jolly Roger fell upon him so he couldn't stick around long. His crew was likely the closest thing to family that Killian Jones had but there was still distance. It was another bit of kinship that Emma felt with Killian. She'd spent years alone after her mother died, and yet even when she'd found David and the rest of her ever-expanding family, she wasn't as close with them as she'd been with her mother. She and Killian were both essentially orphans and her gut was telling her that she needed to be here for him.

As Killian lay sleeping beneath a pale blue blanket drawn up to his bandaged shoulder, Emma sat quietly in a padded wooden armchair in front of the room's large window, focusing intently on her tablet screen. She may not have her mother's journal, but that wasn't going to stop her research. She was fiercely determined to make sense of all of the week's strange events. Nothing about the things that were happening sat right with her and she needed to figure out why.

She'd received another message from Belle not long ago which fueled her study. The librarian had uncovered a few articles that she believed would be helpful to the deputy, emailing Emma copies of anything she could send electronically. She also advised that she'd located a few books that were pertinent to Emma's interests. After returning Belle's call and arranging to have the books delivered here to the hospital, Emma had started perusing the electronic files immediately. There were quite a few scans and links to look at, but she figured she had some time to read before Killian woke.

But she also had plenty of time to think - maybe too much. All of the week's events seemingly stemmed from her casting the true love spell - the spell that was now mysteriously missing from the book she'd recited it from. How had she seen it in there before when Zelena had recited another from the same book? Had it been visible only to her or had it existed within those vellum pages only to disappear once recited? And then there was that stupid spell itself… She'd felt so compelled to cast it, but had she now drawn innocent bystanders into its mix? Unlike her mother's situation, she knew that both Killian Jones and Walsh Gibbons were real. Unless Killian's entire crew was an elaborate ruse, they'd been sailing with him for years so Captain Jones wasn't imaginary. And Walsh - she'd known him for a while now. They'd dated when she lived in Boston so he was real enough. Now both men's fates were intertwined with hers and for what? So some greedy, needy warlock could cheat her out of her powers if she couldn't figure out which man was her true love?

The whole damned situation irked her. She certainly wasn't the first witch to cast a spell to find love. The very fact that these spells exist was evidence that others had been every bit as hopeful (or maybe desperate) as she'd been. But had she stumbled onto this particular spell by accident or had it been predestined? Had the warlock chosen his victims in advance or was it mere coincidence that both she and her mother had become his victims?

No one had yet mentioned who the warlock's first chosen opponent had been or whether that person had been kin to Emma's family so that had been one of Emma's questions for Belle. There had to be some sort of record as to who that unlucky person had been and fortunately for Emma, Belle had been successful in locating a name. The first opponent had also been a woman - a powerful witch by the name of Ursula who had arrived to Storybrooke from the West Indies in the early 1900s. Belle hadn't been able to uncover any information about what the warlock had used to trick her, but the reports from the time stated that she'd not only lost her powers, but also her voice. A month later, she'd been found floating in the bay, apparently having drowned herself to end her suffering.

What sort of sadistic bastard was she dealing with? He clearly enjoyed preying on women, but why? Were they easier targets or were their powers stronger? Knowing she'd fallen pretty easily for the trap, Emma assumed women might be easier to coerce, although her powers certainly didn't seem to measure up to her mother's or to what she'd read about Ursula's. Had Emma been targeted because of some weakness the warlock had observed? And why did he feel it necessary to resort to so many games?

_Magical deals be damned - something wasn't adding up here._

Emma had entirely lost track of time when she heard a faint rap on the room's door. Glancing up, she was somewhat surprised to see David's face peeking around the doorframe. As he passed through the entrance, she could see that he had a stack of books tucked beneath his left arm and a carry-out bag from Granny's clutched in his right hand.

"I figured you'd text me first," she greeted her brother as he deposited the books on a narrow counter beside the sink and dropped the bag of food onto her lap.

"Mary Margaret insisted that I bring you something to eat and as I was leaving Granny's, I ran into Belle who said she was bringing these books over for you. Since I was already on my way over, I figured I'd save her the trip and brought them myself. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to find the journal you were looking for."

"I didn't figure you would," she replied dejectedly. "I'm quite certain that someone took it while we were searching for Killian."

"Pretty bold to steal something from a deputy from _inside_ the station."

"Even bolder if they abducted and stabbed Killian to provide themselves a diversion," Emma added.

"Agreed. How's he doing anyway?" David asked, jabbing a finger in the direction of the slumbering man in the bed behind him. "Any change?"

"No. He's still unconscious, his heart rate is extremely slow and his breathing is unusually shallow. Dr. Whale said that there's no real medical reason for it so he's running some tests to check for drugs or other substances that might be in Killian's system."

"Could be some really strong knockout drugs, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. I really would like to get his statement and get this crime linked to a perp…"

"There's no way to know how long it will be until he wakes, but in the meantime, I've got some reading to do."

"I see that. What's the subject?"

"Some history and some stuff about warlocks and wizards, but without the magical school and British accents… Well, al least no accent until Killian wakes."

David shook his head at the exhausting thought of doing this much reading. "I'll leave you to your studies then but I'll check back in a few hours."

"Sounds good. Thanks, David."

"You're welcome. And I do hope your captain here wakes up soon."

"Me too," she said as David strolled through the doorway and turned out of her line of sight. As she stood, she inhaled the tempting aroma of onion rings as she placed the take-out bag on the windowsill and took a couple of steps over to the counter to retrieve the books. Her eyes were drawn to the figure on the bed and she couldn't help but stare at him while picking up the first book from the stack. _Mythology of Supernatural Beings_ was the title and the book cover was emblazoned with a devil's trap pentagram. This wasn't going to be light reading but she was ready for the challenge. She had a few suspicions about what was really happening in this town but she wasn't yet ready to share her theory - or the choice she'd made. She fully intended to put an end to these silly games permanently but she needed to be sure.

* * *

Emma hadn't realized that she'd dozed off until she felt a tap on her shoulder. She woke with an involuntary shudder, stunned for a moment until she recognized the face of the brunette nurse who'd been in and out of the room all afternoon.

"I'm sorry, Deputy Swan. I didn't mean to startle you, but you have a visitor downstairs in the lobby."

"Oh… Alright then… Thank you, Michelle." Emma closed the book on her lap and placed it over onto the windowsill before pushing herself to her feet. Maintaining a vigil at a hospital bedside wasn't the most comfortable way to spend a day. "Would you have Fred keep watch on this room and page me if anything changes while I'm gone?"

"I'll be happy to, Deputy, although any changes in Mr. Jones' condition don't seem likely at this point."

"I know. Wishful thinking on my part. His case is still active and I still need to get his statement." Emma was reluctant to leave Killian's side, especially when they'd yet to identify his abductor but she knew that Fred the security guard wouldn't let anyone past without proper authorization. Killian would be fine for a few minutes while she went downstairs to see who was waiting for her so she stepped into the elevator and took it down to the ground floor. When the doors parted, she made the left turn into the main hallway, strolled past the security checkpoint, gift shop and snack bar into the open space of the entrance lobby, not expecting the person she found standing there.

"Walsh? What are you doing here?" she asked incredulously.

"I hadn't heard back from you all day so I got a little bit worried - especially when the other deputy said you were here."

"I'm fine. It's just been a very hectic day. I've been waiting here all day waiting for a kidnapping victim to wake up so I can get a statement."

"Is that why you had to leave the diner this morning?"

"Partially," she replied, not wanting to divulge too much information. "Just the usual chaos that is the life of a deputy sheriff in Storybrooke."

"I'm sure," he chuckled before sighing with relief. "I'm just glad you're alright and… well, I was going to see if you would like to join me for dinner?"

"I'm sorry, Walsh. I really can't. This is still an open case and David and Graham will really need my help to catch the kidnapper." She was trying to let him down easy, using work as an excuse so she didn't have to reveal that she really just wanted to be here with Killian. "I would love to, but maybe another night?"

"Of course. I understand," he replied in a quiet, dejected tone, his posture now echoing his visible disappointment. "Please, call me tomorrow. I really would like to have one more evening with you before I head back to Boston."

"I'd like that, too," she insisted.

"Well, I hope he wakes up soon so you can close your case."

"Me too," she said as she gave him a quick hug that turned out far more awkward than she'd expected. She'd wanted it to be a nice, friendly gesture, but she wasn't feeling as though her sentiments were being reciprocated. Walsh had wrapped his arms around her back, but she sensed no emotion from the embrace - at least not the sort of emotion one would expect from someone claiming to be concerned about her. "I'll see you later, Walsh."

Then again, perhaps she was reading too much into things after everything she'd been reading. As Walsh vanished out of the hospital's front doors, the little gears inside Emma's head were going into overdrive so she decided to call one person who could help clarify things a bit - Graham.

She yanked her phone out of her jeans pocket and dialed his number, worried that she might get his voicemail, but he finally answered on the fourth ring. "Hey Graham. Turn up anything?"

"Not much," he replied. "The place was pretty bare. I pulled a few fingerprints, but those will only help us if the person is in the system. Oh, I did find some interesting scraps in the fireplace that lead me to believe that those dust voids on the mantle were from photographs. I bagged the scraps as evidence but I want you to have a look at them."

"I'd love to see what you've got. Can you bring them by the hospital?"

"Yeah. I just got back to the station, so give me a little while and I'll be over."

"Sounds good. Oh, Graham - did you happen to talk to someone and mention that I was here at the hospital with Captain Jones?"

"No. Only people I've spoken with were David and the search party, but as I said, I just got back. Any particular reason?"

"No, that's okay. Just had some curious people stopping by and asking questions, you know?"

"Probably just someone trying to get the scoop for tomorrow's paper… Any changes though?"

"'Fraid not. Seems like it's going to be a long night."

"Alright. Well, I'll see you in about an hour or so then."

"See you then," she said as she disconnected the call, strolling over to an unoccupied, quiet alcove off of the entrance hall, needing to make another call with more privacy. Walsh was long out of view, but her conversation with Graham left her ill at ease. Graham hadn't spoken to Walsh so how the hell had Gibbons known she was here? And how had he known that the kidnapping victim was a man? Something smelled rotten here…

She scrolled through her contacts to find the number belonging to Mayor Regina Mills, dialing it even though Regina would be none-too-happy to hear from Emma again today.

"Hello, Emma," Regina's voice greeted her in a flat, disinterested tone.

"Regina, I need your help with something," Emma stated, keeping her voice low in case prying ears were nearby.

"Again? What spell did you cast this time?"

"Yes, again… And I didn't cast another spell. There have been some odd developments in the case."

"Such as? Robin told me that you found Captain Jones. Was there something odd about that?"

"Nothing specifically about finding him, but there are a lot of other things that aren't making sense… Regina, if I'm right, this town is dealing with something more powerful than a warlock…"

"You're probably jumping to conclusions, but just what do you think is going on?"

"I don't want to get into it over the phone. Can you come down to the hospital? I don't really want to leave here until he wakes up."

"Then call me back when he does."

"That's the thing, Regina - no one has any idea when he might wake up. He's been unconscious since we found him, but Dr. Whale can't find any medical reason why."

Regina's ears perked up at those words. "He's not injured?"

"He was stabbed, but not severely enough to be unconscious this long."

"I'll be there in half an hour."

* * *

Regina seemed to have a permanent scowl etched onto her face today but at least she showed up promptly. Emma had advised security that Mayor Mills was on her way and to let her pass, not that anyone really would have dared to stop her. Emma wasn't really sure where to begin as Regina pushed open the door and entered the room, taking a side-eyed glance at the dark-haired patient on the bed as she passed.

"Well, at least he's good looking…," Regina quipped. "Now, just what the hell is going on, Emma? What was so secretive that you couldn't say anything over the phone?"

"I'm not sure it's safe to talk here…," Emma said as she pushed herself to her feet. "I'm worried that someone might be watching…"

"Then we make some privacy," Regina stated as she withdrew her ebony wand from inside her pantsuit jacket and waved it with theatrical flourish, producing a force field that sealed the room off from the rest of the world. "There - problem solved. You know how to set up a protective spell. Unless your magic is slipping, you're really distracted by this."

"Look, Regina, let me preface this by saying that this has probably been one of the most overwhelming weeks of my life. I've been here in Storybrooke for a few months, but I've been bombarded with more surprises and secrets this week than I could ever have imagined, so if what I have to say sounds crazy, imagine what has been going through my mind for the past several days."

"Noted," Regina replied without emotion as she sat down in the chair Emma had vacated.

"Okay, so I've been told by everyone this week that my mother was once a powerful witch who was tricked out of those powers by losing a challenge set up by a warlock, but what if that story isn't entirely true?"

"What about the story do you think is false? We've been told for generations that the warlock gave this town it's magic. It's our town's legacy, Emma. You've known that story for a few days and you already think it's wrong?"

"It just doesn't seem like a warlock would be powerful enough, not to mention that he'd have to be immortal to keep coming back here after all these years… I think we're dealing with a far more powerful being…"

"Seriously, Emma? A few months into the study of magic and you're suddenly an expert at identifying warlocks and magical beings?"

"Don't berate me, Regina! I may not be a magical expert, but I'm not an idiot and I'm a good enough detective to know when the clues don't add up. After skimming through my mother's journal and researching some stuff Belle sent me, I think we might be dealing with some sort of trickster."

"A trickster? You think that Loki is running amuck in Storybrooke?" Regina scoffed, rolling her eyes at the deputy.

"Loki is just the Scandinavian name for a trickster," Emma stated firmly, the irritation in her voice increasing. "There are other names for them in other cultures, but whatever you want to call it, a trickster fills in some of the holes in the story. Tricksters like to play games so these ridiculous challenges make more sense. This crazy true love spell… Killian being kidnapped to try to throw off my decision and whatever is affecting him now that's keeping him unconscious…"

Regina stabbed a finger in the direction of the sleeping Killian Jones. "That? That's magic - dark magic."

"What?" Emma wasn't sure she believed what she was hearing. "Magic? What does magic have to do with this?"

"When you called and said that they couldn't find any medical reason, it reminded me of a dark potion I'd only ever heard of before. A sleeping spell."

" _Sleeping spell_? Those are a thing?"

"We're not talking Sleeping Beauty here. It won't make him immortal and sleep forever. If this is the potion I think it is, he's stuck in perpetual sleep. He can only be awakened with the antidote - assuming whoever cursed him made one - or by a kiss of true love."

"A kiss of true love? So it is like Sleeping Beauty… And if he is my true love, he'll wake up, but if he's not…"

"You lose your powers and he'll stay like this forever," Regina deadpanned the obvious.

"Thanks for not making my decision any easier…," Emma sighed as her eyes drifted over to Killian's peaceful-looking face. She had no idea if he could hear what they were saying. Was he screaming at her on the inside? She hated that so much hinged on a seemingly impossible choice.

"So you haven't determined which one of them is your true love yet?" Regina questioned.

"No, I haven't. Every time I think I have it figured out, my brain thinks up something that changes my mind… It's incredibly frustrating and there's no way to just wave my wand and fix things…"

"If you had asked, I would have told you that matters of the heart generally aren't best served by magical shortcuts," Regina reminded her.

"I know - I screwed up… All the good it does me now…" Emma lamented as she sat down on the bottom corner of the bed. "It's my fault that he's stuck like this…"

"How is this sleeping spell your fault?" Regina chastised her. "You may have cast a spell that brought him into your life, but you didn't make the potion or give it to him. You don't even know for sure that your love spell is related to what happened to him…"

"I'm pretty sure they are," Emma replied defensively as she felt her phone vibrating in her pocket. "Hold on a moment…," she said to Regina as she fished out her phone to see Grahams name on the display. "It's Graham. He has some evidence for me to look at." Regina nodded, uninterested in whatever evidence the two deputies were going to discuss. "Hi Graham… Yeah, room 306… Okay, thanks… See you in a bit."

Emma disconnected the call as Regina stood up brandishing her wand to lower the conjured protective barrier. "Better drop the protection spell so your partner can get in. Was there more you wanted to tell me or can I go now?"

"You're not going to weigh in with an opinion on my theory?" Emma wondered.

"I'm reserving my opinion until there's more evidence," the mayor insisted, seeing Graham's face in the doorway. "I'll talk to you later."

Emma nodded as Regina traded places with Graham, her heels clicking on the tile floor as she strode into the hallway while Graham took a tentative step into the room.

"Why was Regina just here?" Graham inquired quizzically.

"We had some coven business to discuss," Emma told him, which was only a partial lie. The conversation was about magic and spells. Graham didn't need to know more than that. "So - what did you find out there?"

Still hovering next to the door, Graham reached into his coat pocket and removed three sealed evidence baggies that he passed to Emma. "I found these scraps in the fireplace. Somebody tried to burn some photographs and I think you'll find these interesting…"

"Well, let's see…," she replied as she took the plastic bags from his hand. The remnants of the photos weren't very large and they were badly scorched, but Emma could make out some of the detail. The first black and white scrap showed a portion of a woman's face. She appeared to have dark skin and jet black hair, but the photo was so coated with soot that it was difficult to tell. Emma didn't recognize the woman in this photo but her eyes lit up at the familiar face. "This is my mother," she announced, pointing at the burnt image of a blonde haired woman with long, flipped bangs that were vintage 1970s. "It proves Ozmund Welch or whoever was living out there did have a connection to my mother."

"You may want to look at that last one…"

Shifting the two images she'd already seen to the bottom of the pile, Emma's jaw fell slack at the third imagine. " _Son of a bitch_ …" she muttered, yanking out her phone and tapping one of the contacts. "Graham - stay here and don't let anyone through that doorway…" She darted into the corridor with the bag still clutched in her fist, leaving a bewildered Graham behind. She had the phone to her ear awaiting an answer, bypassing the normal greeting when the person on the other end answered. "Regina - are you still in the hospital?"

"I just walked outside. What is it?"

"Meet me in the lobby. There's something I want you to see," Emma implored as she stepped inside the elevator.

"Fine," Regina replied, pivoting on her heels to return to the lobby. "This had better be good…"

"It may answer one of our biggest questions…" Emma explained before her phone lost service inside the elevator.

Regina was waiting for her when the elevator doors parted at the ground floor and as soon as the other passengers came and went, Emma ushered Regina over to the still-unoccupied alcove she'd called from earlier.

"Alright, Emma… what is this about?"

"This," Emma stated as she held up the evidence bag for Regina to view. "Look at this… Graham found it in the fireplace at the house where we found Killian."

"What am I looking at here?" Regina queried, squinting her eyes as she glanced at the scorched photo, trying to make out the image.

"It's a photo of me." Emma said as she showed Regina the other two remnants. "And here's one of my mom and a really old one of a woman I think was the first victim… I understand the possible connection to my mom, but if he's got photographs of all of his opponents?"

"That's a little disturbing, but you said this would help give some answers. I don't understand…"

"Regina - this isn't a recent photograph of me. It was taken in Boston a couple of years ago. The dress I'm wearing was from an undercover sting - the same case I was on when I met Walsh!"

"Could it be a coincidence?" Regina asked, but she already doubted that herself.

"Do you believe in coincidence?" Emma retorted. "If this warlock or trickster, or whatever the hell he is, was stalking me then, he had to have already known who I was. I didn't even know I had magic back then, so how did he? Only someone who knew my mother could possibly have known that which meant they had to be connected to Storybrooke…"

"Which means…?"

"I think it means Walsh is no innocent bystander. I don't think my true love could possibly be someone who was already plotting this game years before I knew I was playing."

"Well, there's only one way to know for sure…"

"And that is?"

"You make the choice that Captain Jones is your true love and then you get back up there and kiss the holy hell out of that man."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to leave you hanging there but the next chapter needed to open with the kiss. It'll all come together very soon...


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020 has started off with a bang for me so this chapter got just a little bit delayed - and ran a little longer than I had originally plotted with the addition of a previously unplanned scene. With this being the next to last chapter, there are a handful of surprises left to reveal.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has given me encouragement along the way! I hope you'll enjoy these last 2 chapters as this tale draws to a close.

_It was just a kiss._

Emma kept that mantra swirling through her head as she anxiously hovered at Killian's bedside trying to muster the courage to press her lips to his. Her sight was locked on his face, staring down at his stubbled jawline and dimpled cheeks before allowing her gaze to drift upward to his closed eyes. She'd not previously noticed how unfairly long and full his eyelashes were. Two coats of mascara and she couldn't even come close to that natural lushness… Of course, she'd much rather be staring into the intense blueness( _was that even a word?_ )that lay beneath - irises the hue of the sea he loved so much. And just like the sea, it would be so easy to find herself lost in his stare…

She'd felt a connection with this man the moment they'd met, but she hadn't imagined that the future of their brief, still-evolving relationship wound hinge on a kiss. Oh hell, who was she kidding? _Everything_ hinged on this single kiss and the weight of all it entailed was a lot to bear. This kiss would control their destiny - his as well as hers - and just the thought of something potentially going wrong was terrifying.

"It's just a kiss," Regina casually reminded her from across the room, her tone seemingly mocking Emma's mantra, although unintentionally.

"Easy for you to say," Emma replied in a huff. "You're not the one who's going to lose her powers or condemn a man to endless sleep if this goes wrong…"

"Do you believe that he's your true love?" Regina queried.

"That's really a loaded question to ask about someone I've known a week."

"You were the one who cast the spell…" Regina quipped sarcastically which garnered her a side-eyed glare from her cousin.

"Thank you for the reminder," Emma scoffed. "I mean, there's definitely a spark, but…"

"But what? Does he look at you the same way David looks at Mary Margaret?"

"I think so."

"Do you find yourself losing track of time when you're with him? Like nothing and no one else matters?"

Emma didn't respond right away as she thought about the lengthy conversations she and Killian had engaged in and how comfortable and welcomed she'd felt while in his presence. Her memory reminded her of the panic she'd experienced upon learning he'd gone missing and of her determination to find him… And then she knew - she'd fallen fast and hard for Killian Jones.

"Yeah... Yeah, I do," Emma responded at last as her fingertips tenderly ghosted across Killian's hand before she grasped hold of his fingers and gave them a reassuring squeeze.

"Then your heart already knows what your head might not have figured out yet," Regina stated. "Now, will you please just lean in there and kiss him so you can put an end to these spells and beat that damned wizard at his own games?"

_Just a kiss,_ Emma's brain chimed in again. _It's only a kiss._

"Oh, what the hell…," Emma exclaimed with a shrug. "Here goes nothing…" She slowly lowered her chin towards Killian's slumbering face, pausing for a second or two that could have been an eternity to her weary mind. Why was she hesitating? She knew she had real feelings for Killian and was sure they were reciprocated but to find herself putting everything on the line so soon in their blossoming relationship seemed so ludicrous… But she was also reminded that she'd gotten herself into this and she'd run out of options. She couldn't think it enough: Everything - _everything -_ rested on their kiss.

She traced her index finger along his scruffy jaw as her lips inched closer to his. The tips of their noses brushed as she lined up for the kiss. She'd had only a little time to imagine what kissing Killian Jones was going to be like, never quite expecting that it would be so one-sided. His lips were surprisingly warm and soft, maybe not as responsive as she would have liked...

But she certainly couldn't deny the spark - the knee-buckling, toe-tingling flash that coursed through her body and even seemed to shake the entire room. She felt momentarily blinded as if a bolt of lightning had struck her down from the heavens. It was like nothing she'd ever experienced. Was this what true love felt like or was this merely the universe stripping her of all of her magical powers for being a fool?

She tried to look down at Killian to find out if his eyes were opening, but all she could see was an encroaching cloud that was black as soot. She thought she could see his eyelids flicker before the cloud enveloped them, leading her to wonder if she'd just unleashed some torrential storm upon them.

* * *

Awakening as if struck by that same unseen bolt of lightning Emma thought she'd felt, Killian's eyelids flew open. His body attempted to jolt upright, impeded only by the searing pain from his injured shoulder that sent a shock through his upper body. He had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten here, but he immediately knew that he was no longer in the dark, locked room. This room was bright and stank of disinfectant rather than mildewed concrete. He woke seeing a flash of blonde hair and the remnants of a dissipating cloud of grey smoke which only heightened his disorientation.

"Emma?" he called out, his voice hampered by a dry, scratchy throat. He was certain it had been her golden locks he'd seen. Despite no one being directly in his line of sight, he still sensed someone was nearby.

"Afraid not, Captain Jones," a woman's voice replied, but it wasn't Emma. Killian raised his chin and shifted slightly to his right to see a brunette standing near the window - and she might have been as bewildered as he was right now. "You… you just missed her…" Regina continued, at a loss for what else to say. She was still struggling to make sense of what had just happened. Captain Jones was awake, which could only have occurred if Emma's kiss had been one of true love. She'd witnessed a blast of light that had nearly knocked her off of her stiletto heels, but then that cloud had engulfed the room - a manifestation of pure, dark magic that shook her to the core - and Emma had vanished. Regina had no idea what had happened to Emma and definitely had no idea what to tell the confounded Captain before her.

"Just missed her?" Killian repeated, brows knitting in confusion as he winced, allowing his aching body to settle back against the pillows. "What?" His brain was tired and nothing was making any sense, least of all this unknown woman standing a few feet from him. "Where the bloody hell am I?" he asked in frustration, now alert enough to realize he was partially exposed by the drafty, thin garment he wore. "And what the devil am I wearing?"

"Storybrooke hospital," Regina answered flatly, "which should explain your current attire. You've been here since this morning when Emma and her brother, Sheriff Nolan, rescued you from the basement of some old cabin out in the forest."

"The dark room…," Killian recalled with an audible, pained sigh.

"What exactly do you remember?" Regina pressed, hoping to gain clues from his experience, but Killian wasn't sure how much he wanted to open up to this stranger.

"Bits and pieces," he replied, unconsciously tucking his truncated left arm beneath the bedcovers as he countered her questioning with a few of his own. "I believe you have me at a bit of a disadvantage though. It appears you know who I am, but I don't believe we've been properly introduced… It would also be nice to learn why you're here and where Emma might be…"

"I'm Regina Mills," she replied, defensively at first, as though offended that he didn't know her identity. "I'm may…" She started to give her title of _Mayor,_ but halted herself and softened her tone. "I'm Emma's cousin. She invited me here to help figure out what had happened to you. Long story short, she just woke you from a sleeping spell with a kiss of true love but then…, then she disappeared. I honestly have no idea where she's gone."

"Then I should assist in finding her," Killian stated, pushing himself into a sitting position and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. One bare foot reached the tile floor before Regina stopped him, brandishing her wand in her right hand.

"No, Captain - you need to lie back down in that bed until Dr. Whale gives you a clear bill of health. You've been under that sleeping spell for at least a day and you have a hole in your shoulder. You're not going anywhere right now. We have ways we can locate Emma just like she found you and I don't need a wounded man getting in my way and screwing things up."

"Are you giving me orders? I'm generally the one who gives the orders," he grumbled, still sitting defiantly.

"Well, right now, you are being given an order. Lie back down in that bed and stay put or I'll put a barrier spell around that bed to keep you there." She tapped the wand against her left palm to show she wasn't bluffing, awaiting his response.

"Yes, ma'am…," he relented, reclining back in the bed unhappily, but obediently. "Just find Emma."

"I will," she promised. "Now, you just relax and stay put while I try to figure out what the hell is going on."

* * *

As the smoke enveloping her dissipated, it was clear to Emma that she was no longer in Killian's hospital room. Honestly, she wasn't sure if she was even still in Storybrooke. She didn't have the slightest idea what had just happened or where she might be. She'd heard about teleportation but it wasn't something she'd ever witnessed. Regina had once admitted to unsuccessfully experimenting with it, but admittedly, few witches possessed the powers necessary to teleport a human. Wherever she was and however she'd arrived here, it had been through the use of powers far more advanced than her own.

_Powers like those belonging to a trickster._

Now she needed to pull herself together and think this through. Like Regina had insisted, she'd kissed Killian Jones, believing him to be her true love. But before she'd been able to confirm whether it was true or not, she'd been inexplicably whisked away from him. It was nearly a parallel to what her mother had described in her journal. Her mother had witnessed the man she believed to be her true love vanish in a puff of smoke while Emma had just been unexpectedly torn away from the man she felt was hers. She had no idea whether Killian had awakened from the spell and she'd yet to have an opportunity to test her powers. She needed her head to stop spinning so she could think clearly. Damn, unplanned teleportation travel was quite disorienting - and maybe just a little bit nauseating.

Her eyes darted left and right searching for something - _anything_ \- recognizable beyond the remnants of the smoky haze. Storybrooke's battered, but iconic clock tower loomed on the horizon to her left giving her some comfort in the fact that she hadn't left town. She did realize that she was viewing it from an unfamiliar angle. Instead of looking up at it, it was straight in front of her.

_Was she on a rooftop_?

She couldn't be certain which building it was and there was no way she was going to move any closer to the edge to find out. She breathed a sigh of relief knowing she was still in Storybrooke. If she was going to be facing off with some maniacal demigod, at least it would be on her home turf. She had to believe that Regina had seen her disappear and was already on the phone with David. Soon, the whole town would be hunting for her. This bastard wasn't going to win. She was done with the lies and the games.

The sun had already dipped below the horizon, leaving her at a disadvantage when a silhouette emerged from the shadows. She wasn't surprised by the revelation she wasn't alone on this rooftop. She already had a very good idea _who_ it was and she was fairly certain she knew _what_ it was. After all, she'd spent the entire afternoon devouring books and online articles researching what she might be contending with. She was ready for it - not that she was expecting a fair fight.

"Hello Walsh," she greeted the dark figure opposite her. "Or would you prefer Ozmund? Maybe _Loki_ …? Is that an old name you like? Just tell me - what is this? Another stupid game?"

"Ozmund… I haven't heard that name in a few years…," he mused, taking a few steps toward her to close the distance between them. "Ah, my wizard phase… Brings back some memories… Now, I suppose I should ask how you figured out it was me."

Her eyes followed his movement, wanting to slap the lopsided smirk from his face as his features came into view. "You shouldn't have targeted someone who's used to investigating," she replied. "You kept doing too many things that had me questioning and when I start asking questions, I have to find answers.

He chuffed at her response. "I suppose I underestimated your tenacity. The bail bonds girl that I met back in Boston was certainly a very different person than the deputy sheriff I found here in Storybrooke."

"That lonely girl found her way home. She found where she belonged and who she was supposed to be."

"A wannabe witch?" Walsh laughed.

"I am a witch! And a deputy sheriff. And a sister. What the hell are you? You're no warlock. A warlock wouldn't have bothered with such silly games... Damnit, why did you target me?"

"I've gone through many incarnations, including my aforementioned wizard era…"

" _Wizard_? I hope Toto pissed on you…," she muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" he asked, not having heard her off-the-cuff comment.

"Nothing. I was just waiting for your answer. I want to know why I'm here, you son of a bitch! I don't know what made you pick me to play your challenge, but I won. I identified my true love and it wasn't you! I beat you! So tell me - why the hell am I up here on this damned rooftop with you? The game's over."

"Are you absolutely sure you won?" he questioned in an attempt to instill doubt in her mind. "Your mother was so sure of herself too. She had every magical advantage available to her and still chose wrong. You're just a novice - so easy to tempt with that love spell. I knew that lonely girl back in Boston… I just needed to get close enough to you for you to develop feelings for me back then. Just had to plant the thought for you to discover yourself - your past. I needed you to return to Storybrooke and discover your powers. As Ava Blanchard's only child, I was hoping your magic would rival hers. I don't understand why you prefer such a mundane existence when you come from such an impressive family of witches."

"Maybe that's because I don't need magic to be happy. It is a part of me that I was curious about, but it doesn't define me. All I care about right now is that I won. You tipped your hand when you stole my mother's journal. What were you afraid of? That she'd left clues? You stooped so low as to kidnap your rival and put him under a sleeping spell just to create a damned diversion?" Her hands clenched into fists at her hip as she spoke, desire to punch Walsh in the face increasing with every word that crossed her lips. "Did you honestly think I wouldn't connect the dots? Maybe my _mundane_ _existence_ as a deputy sheriff helped me put everything together. Did you think you destroyed the photographs you took off of the mantle? The photographs of Ursula and of my mother - and of course the photograph of me taken in Boston…"

"You weren't supposed to find those," he shrugged.

"Then perhaps you shouldn't have locked up Killian in your root cellar in the first place!"

"So, what are you going to do about it?" he taunted as he invaded her personal space. "If you know what I am, do you really think you can beat me?"

"I already did beat you, Walsh, or whatever the hell your name is. I won the challenge so now you can keep your end of the deal and get the hell outta my town!"

Walsh shook his head and chuckled at her. "I suppose you've been fed the old story on how I made a deal to share my powers with the town in exchange for the right to challenge witches to a duel for their powers… Do you really think it was that simple? I'm not the villain you think I am, Emma. Your great-great grandfather wasn't exactly the patron saint of magical beings that he professed to be either."

"And I'm supposed to believe you? You stalked me in Boston… You lied to me… Hell, you lied to my mother! You made her fall in love with you and then you stole her magic. Do you think she was ever the same?"

"I may not have been her true love, but you don't think I had feelings for Ava? You don't think it hurt me? I did what I did for survival…"

Emma scoffed at his attempted explanation. "Survival? You're a damned demigod! What do you know about survival?"

"I may be immortal, but I'm no demigod… Your ancestor managed to trick me into giving up a huge portion of my magic and it weakened me so much that it tethered me to this town. Those challenges were my way of getting some of my magic back."

"So, someone tricked the trickster?" There was a degree of irony here that amused her. "Still makes you an asshole. You targeted innocent women and fooled them into trusting you so you could steal their magic. There's no defense for that, Walsh! And don't try to fool me - we met in Boston. You couldn't have been tethered to Storybrooke if you were running a business in Boston!"

"You don't have to believe me, but you are descended from someone far more evil than I'll ever be. The magic I procured from your mother strengthened me enough to leave. I traveled around a bit amongst the mortals and finally, settled in Boston. At least it reminded me a bit of the old world..."

"So I'm supposed to believe that after all of this? Us meeting in Boston was accidental?"

"Believe what you want to believe, but yes, it was entirely by chance. I saw you and instantly knew you were Ava's daughter. You're the spitting image of her and I had to believe that odds were your magic would be as strong as hers. I just had to get you to go back to Storybrooke, but strangely enough, you found your way back before I could even come up with a plan."

"I don't care, Walsh," she stated, giving him a forceful shove away from her. "This ends now. The games, the challenges - they're over. If you can leave Storybrooke - then leave!"

"I can't do that just yet. I don't have enough magic to return to my own realm. The Blanchard family possesses the most powerful magic in this realm and you were the most vulnerable of the Blanchard descendants. You just didn't find out until after you cast the little spell I planted for you that you were part of the founding family." Walsh ignored her protest and forced his way into her personal space again. "I'm really sorry, Emma. It's nothing personal, but I need your magic. Give it to me voluntarily and I won't need to hurt anyone. Not everything can be fixed with a kiss of true love…"

The evening skies darkened and a menacing mist descended from the heavens as Emma stared into the soulless eyes of her former lover. How had she misjudged him this badly? She'd always believed she had an innate ability to sense someone was lying to her but maybe that wasn't the case… How many people she thought she could trust had been keeping secrets from her? And not small secrets either. Maybe she wasn't the person she'd thought she was…

"No, Walsh," she replied. "I may not be some super powerful witch, but I'm not giving up my magic without a fight."

"So be it," he shrugged. His eyes took on an unearthly glow, yellowish at first then morphing into fiery orange and blood red. A lamp near the building's stairwell sparked and then exploded in a shower of tiny glass shards as Walsh's true nature made itself known.

Emma's feet scrambled in attempt to back away but his fingers latched onto her wrist and held tight. "Let go of me!" she demanded, wriggling herself free of his grasp as she stumbled backward. "I don't know what I ever saw in you, Walsh, but this is it! Get away from me!"

Her clenched fists no longer felt as if they were a part of her body as the pent-up anger within her exploded in a blast of brilliance that drove the trickster back several steps. She stared in disbelief at her balled fists while Walsh staggered and shifted his balance, both of them visibly stunned by Emma's newfound reactive powers. He tried to downplay his surprise and re-establish his dominance before she realized what she'd done.

"Well, well… That was a nice little parlor trick…," Walsh taunted, determined to keep her off guard. "Of course, I don't even think you could do that again if you tried…"

Emma unfurled her fingers and flexed them a few times, an unfamiliar tingle seemingly just beneath the surface of her skin. _What had she just done_? She could only recall growing angry when Walsh manhandled her and the emotion had simply burst from somewhere within. She'd watched Regina and Zelena conjure fireballs in the palms of their hands and of course, she'd practiced doing the same, but this - this was an entirely new sensation. This was magic she hadn't known existed until now. Pure magic she'd conjured straight from…

_From_ _where_?

Not from a dusty old spellbook or some centuries old potion. No, this had absolutely come from within her. Her own energy had formulated this power in response to her own ire.

_Could she do it again?_

"Do you want me to try that again?" she responded to his challenge. "I think I finally figured out the piece I've been missing… Magic doesn't come from a book or a potion or a wand. My magic comes from inside of me. I don't know why it took me all these months to figure that out…" She squeezed her eyes closed as she focused her fury on Walsh once again. Warmth spread through her fingers as a gold-tinged glow emanated from her ivory skin. When her eyelids opened, her irises darkened, gilded sparks appearing to blend with her natural olivine and emerald hues.

And Emma Swan wasn't about to pull any punches. A second burst of energy nearly toppled her over, but succeeded in sending Walsh diving for cover. This little novice witch wasn't playing anymore.

"So that's how you want to play?" Walsh growled with a vindictive sneer. "You have no idea what you're doing."

And in truth, she didn't, but fate intervened and brought her an ally. A third, silhouetted figure had joined them on the rooftop and while she'd no idea how this person had gotten up there or even when they'd appeared, Walsh was visibly irritated by the intruders presence.

"You're not needed here!" He shouted at the figure obscured in the shadows. "This is between me and the witch!"

"You'll have to pardon the interruption, Dearie," the figure spoke up. She didn't recognize the almost impish, mocking voice, but Walsh clearly did. "I just stopped by to ensure a fair fight." The figure let out a slightly sinister _giggle_? as it vanished as stealthily as it had appeared. Emma stood her ground, bewildered for a second, until an object materialized on her right index finger - the garnet-capped signet ring that had been tucked away in her mother's little box. And then a disembodied voice whispered in her ear: _Focus the talisman and turn the trickster's game back onto him._

Not noticing the trinket now adorning Emma's hand, Walsh lashed out against her. A ruby red shield immediately appeared before her, deflecting his magic as she retaliated in defense. The entire rooftop was alight with a blinding flash and Emma sunk to her knees, drained of all energies and fearful she'd just lost the battle. As the spots faded from her vision, she fought to regain her composure and get back on her feet, but Walsh was nowhere in sight.

He wouldn't relinquish his chance to gloat, she thought as she surveyed the roof, finding no one else around. Both Walsh and the shadowy figure with the disconcerting voice were gone yet she wasn't entirely alone.

Resting on the floor roughly twenty feet from her was a stuffed toy monkey with glowing crimson eyes that gradually faded to black.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For weeks, I was feeling as though this story would never come together. Amidst all of the chaos, I finally found the words again and with a few tweaks from my original plan, this story is at last complete! 
> 
> When we left off, Emma had kissed Killian awake (although she doesn't know it yet) before being whisked off to a rooftop to battle Walsh. Now, having defeated him, she's still left with a ton of questions - and some of the answers just might be more than she imagined.

She should have registered some reaction as the ominous clouds drifted apart, but assuming that the trickster had been controlling the darkened skies, Emma barely noticed the evening wasn't as foreboding as earlier. Her brain was still struggling to process the sequence of events that had just taken place on the rooftop and the shocking role she'd just played. She sank to her knees in disbelief as her gaze locked on the stuffed toy that rested in the very position Walsh had stood moments ago.

Magic - magic more powerful than she'd ever experienced - had escaped from her fingertips like an electric shock, yet she hadn't really been surprised by the sensation. This new magic had felt so comfortable, so natural. Had she always had those abilities?

The only real surprise had been in her unexpected ally. There'd been something familiar in that creepy cackle but at this particular moment, she was too shaken to place the voice that had whispered in her ear. Whoever (or whatever) it had been, the shadowy figure's presence had angered Walsh. It also hadn't been fazed by Walsh's powers yet Emma was astounded to think that this person had shown a degree of faith in her powers that she wouldn't have thought she was worthy of.

It seemed to have been an eternity since she'd been whisked atop this building but how much time had actually passed? Emma finally found the strength to push herself back to her feet and took a tentative step towards the plush monkey, approaching the toy with a degree of caution as though it might spring to life. _Had she really just turned Walsh Gibbons into a stuffed animal?_

She slid the garnet-capped signet ring onto her index finger, finding herself twisting it mindlessly as thoughts of her actions crossed her mind. She pushed them away as she lowered her hand to scoop up the little monkey. It didn't appear quite so sinister upon closer inspection, but she wasn't taking any chances and certainly wasn't about to leave it here. After a brief examination and determination that there was no lingering paranormal effect, she tucked the toy beneath her arm. It was time to get the hell off of this roof and get back to Killian…

_Killian_! Her mind was suddenly in overdrive, flooded with anxiety about what may have happened to him. She patted her pockets in search of her phone before remembering that she'd set it down on the nightstand before she'd kissed Killian. Ugh… how was she supposed to find out what had happened to Killian if she couldn't call anyone? For that matter, how was anyone supposed to call to see if she was alright?

Too bad the mysterious stranger couldn't have let her know if she had the ability to poof herself back over to the hospital before vanishing…

Emma managed to locate the doorway that led to the building's stairwell and hurried down the three stories to reach the ground level, using a tiny bit of magic to unlock the door of the ice cream shop she found herself in. She took a moment to secure the lock once she was outside but she made a mental note to return tomorrow to apologize to the proprietor anyway. She'd reimburse them for the lock in the event her magic caused any permanent damage.

She darted across an empty Main Street, still clutching the stuffed monkey, and made a left on 3rd, running as fast as her feet would allow before nearly colliding with a vehicle approaching from Oak Street. Hyper-focused on finding her way back to Storybrooke Hospital and the man she was now certain was her True Love, it barely registered that the vehicle now screeching to a halt was the black and white Sheriff's cruiser and the figure leaping out of the driver's seat was her brother, David.

"Emma!" David shouted to garner her attention, but she didn't seem to have noticed him. "Emma! Stop!" Her head snapped around as she heard her name called along with the order to _Stop._ Now she recognized David, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of her sibling. "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded. "Regina called me and said you vanished from the hospital and we've been searching all over town for you…"

"I'm fine, David," she insisted, not wanting to waste time explaining things to her brother right now. "It's all over and I promise, I'll tell you everything, but right now, I need to get to Killian. I need to know that he's okay…"

"Your pirate, uh…, I mean _Captain_ is fine. He's awake and confused, just as we all are."

"Then give me a ride over there."

"Yeah…, sure," he replied as he calmed down enough to notice the toy tucked in the crook of her arm. "But can you tell me what's with the monkey?"

"That is a very long story," Emma stated as she tossed the plush toy into the back seat of the cruiser before climbing in to the passenger seat. "I'll try to explain later… if I can figure it out myself first…"

"I'm going to regret asking, aren't I?" David asked as he slid back into the driver's seat and pulled the door closed while Emma fastened her seat belt. She answered him with simply a shrug of her shoulders. She'd just defeated a powerful demigod, albeit a weakened one, who had masqueraded as someone she'd once loved. She'd put an end to the town's history of supernatural challenges designed to strip witches of their magic. She'd thought to ask questions, to do the research that her mother hadn't done and now, it was time to reunite with the man she'd known for only a week. The man she now knew was her true love.

She certainly had some interesting conversations ahead of her.

* * *

David slightly abused his authority as Sheriff as he sped his sister to the front entrance of Storybrooke Hospital, lights flashing and siren blaring the whole way. Using David's phone, Emma messaged Regina to ask her to lower the protective spell, promising she'd explain everything (at least as well as she could) when she arrived. She didn't have the faintest idea what she was going to say but something would come to her. At least she hoped something would come to mind since she really wasn't sure herself.

Regina's face wasn't exactly the one Emma wanted to see as the elevator doors parted so she tried her best to disguise the disappointment on her face when her cousin started asking questions before she could even step into the corridor.

"Emma, what the hell happened? Where did you go?" Regina impatiently rattled off her inquisition but before Emma could even open her mouth to reply, David held up his hand with the best _I've got this_ expression on his face.

"Give her a minute or two, Regina," David stated, ushering the mayor aside while Emma slipped past. "She's had a rough day and just uncovered her true love. Don't you think they deserve a moment alone?"

Emma grinned at her brother's words. It had to be killing him to say that, she thought as she overheard Regina sputtering through a dejected reply. Madame Mayor wasn't used to being usurped by her underlings, even if they were her relatives.

Her heart was pounding and her skin was flushed as she passed through the open doorway into Killian's room, finding him seated atop the bed wearing the same dusty black jeans he'd had on when she'd found him in Walsh's root cellar. He'd clearly been rushing to dress himself, his midnight blue tee-shirt still clutched in his hand when she entered. His back was to her but he turned immediately to face her at the sound of her footsteps on the tile. Her breath hitched in her throat for a split-second at the sight of his bare, well-toned chest, eyes drifting to the patches of dark, thick hair trailing across his pectorals and down the center of his abdomen.

"Killian, hi…," she stammered, lifting her gaze to meet his eyes before he caught her checking him out. The sly smile that crossed his lips indicated she was probably too late.

"Emma...I'm so glad to see you, Love," he said, dropping the tee-shirt onto the bed as he stood to face her. Both felt equally awkward and anxious, having learned in very different ways that they were true loves. They still had so much to learn about the other. There were so many more words to be said and time to be spent together but in this instant, all of those seemed insignificant as she rushed toward his open arms. Without hesitation, he drew her to him and captured her parted lips with his. Emma sighed into his kiss as their bodies pressed together, relaxing as she relished his embrace, the fear of losing him diminishing as she gently caressed his wounded shoulder.

Without breaking their connection, Emma wiggled her fingers in the direction of the door, willing it to close as the sudden need for a little privacy struck her. As she heard it slam shut at her command, the corners of her mouth upturned into a deeper smile that Killian reciprocated when he noticed the glass wall of the hospital room frosting over with an opaque white film as if by magic.

Pure true love magic.

_The Next Day_

An overnight in a hospital bed was certainly not the evening Killian Jones would have preferred to spend with his newfound true love. Dr. Whale had insisted his patient stay the night for observation since he hadn't been able to determine the unknown substances present in Killian's blood. Emma knew it was the sleeping potion, but Dr. Whale didn't know that. The doctor saw a man who'd been inexplicably unconscious for hours with a stab wound in his shoulder and despite Killian's arguments that he kept his hook spotless, Whale had insisted on intravenous antibiotics to stave off infection. The stubborn captain was finally forced to concede defeat when Emma reminded him that his abductor might have subjected Killian's hook to some less-than-sanitary treatment before shoving it into his shoulder - not that Killian wasn't going to grumble about his additional night of forced captivity.

Having slept for a full day already, Killian was wide awake so, despite her own exhaustion, Emma stayed up to talk with him as long as she physically could, eventually drifting off to sleep curled into his uninjured side on the narrow bed. He wrapped his arm around her, careful not to entangle her in the tubes and wires attached to him while he thought of ways to inform his crew that they'd be remaining moored in this port for a little while longer.

When released shortly after 9 o'clock, David met them at the curb, dropping off Emma's car while Graham waited in the cruiser across the street to drive his boss back to the station. They'd both agreed that Emma deserved a couple of days off so they offered to cover her shifts until Wednesday to give her some time to decompress. She, of course, planned to spend as much of that time as possible with Killian Jones.

Emma drove Killian to the harbor, leaving him to reclaim his position as Captain while she made a brief trip back to the loft for a much needed hot shower and a change of clothes. She assured him that she'd return in an hour or two and whether or not it made her the talk of the town, she had no intention of leaving his side tonight.

She managed to dodge most of Mary Margaret's questions as she cleaned up and pulled on a pair of faded blue jeans that she paired with a casual charcoal grey sweater. She hurried downstairs clutching her favorite ankle boots, flopping onto one of the kitchen chairs to tug them on while her sister-in-law brought her a brown paper bound parcel.

"I almost forgot," Mary Margaret spoke up as she extended the package towards Emma. "This came for you this morning."

"It did?" Emma asked quizzically as she took the parcel into her own hand. She didn't see any postmarks or return address on it and she hadn't been expecting anything. What was this that had mysteriously arrived today?

"I found it on the doorstep after David left to pick you up."

"Oh, okay… Thanks." Emma peeled off the paper wrapping and was stunned to find that beneath that outer layer was her mother's journal. "You didn't happen to see who left this, did you?" she asked as her sister in law turned on the faucet to start washing the breakfast dishes.

"Uh, no, sorry."

"That's okay. I think I may know…" Maybe she'd been wrong about something here but she knew she'd need to make a pit stop on the way back to the harbor. "I've got to get going. Thanks for this."

"Enjoy the time with your Captain," Mary Margaret dismissed her with a knowing grin as the sink filled with hot water.

* * *

But the Jolly Roger wouldn't be her immediate destination. Emma drove to Main Street and eased her Bug to the curb, setting her jaw firmly as she parked the car and clambered out, clutching the toy monkey that had materialized the previous night in her left hand. She stomped fervently to the entrance to the pawn shop and unceremoniously shoved the door open, thankfully finding no patrons in the shop as the little warning bell attached to the handle sounded. Without waiting for the shop's proprietor to emerge from the back room, she flipped the _Open_ sign over to read _Closed_ instead.

She'd rather this be a private conversation.

A slightly perturbed Mr. Gold emerged from beyond his bead curtain as Emma flopped the stuffed toy atop his glass countertop.

"Deputy Swan… To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this morning?" He stabbed a bony finger at the toy littering his counter. "And what's with the toys? If you're planning to pawn that, it's hardly worth anything…"

"I think you know why I'm here," she replied. "I think you know a lot more than the little bits and pieces you've been feeding me."

"Am I supposed to know what that means?"

"Yeah, I think you do. After all, you showed up to help me last night - albeit in a very different form. Just who the hell are you? Forget that… what the hell are you?"

Gold sighed dejectedly then raised his hand and locked the door with a flick of his wrist. "Seems as though we should keep this between us."

"Fine with me, as long as you start telling me the truth!"

"Truth can be subjective, Miss Swan. You of all people should understand that."

"Understand what? How everyone has lied to me since the moment I arrived into this town? I used to think I could tell when people lied to me, but then I came here and suddenly, I have no idea who I can trust…"

"I'm afraid that's because the spell your mother gifted you with doesn't work within the boundaries of Storybrooke. She intended it to protect you from those outside our town lines, not within."

"So people from Storybrooke can lie to me all they want and I'd never know it? How do I know you're not lying to me right now?"

"Because right now, your desire for the truth has brought you here, exactly as I knew it would."

"You knew. I knew it!" she exclaimed although there was still a heavy degree of skepticism in her voice. "What the hell is going on here? Last night, I got transported across town, had a battle with a damned trickster who once pretended to care for me, had some creepy, shadowy figure show up and give me this…," she unfurled her right hand to reveal the garnet ring that had repelled Walsh's magic. "And then a magical shield suddenly deflected his magic and he disappeared, leaving only this little plush monkey where he'd been standing. But I'm pretty sure you already knew all of that since you were the shadowy figure up on that rooftop with me. Isn't that right, _Dearie_?"

Gold chuckled, picking up the toy to examine it. "You're every bit the witch I knew you would be, Emma. From the moment your powers emerged, I knew you'd be the one to save this town."

"And I thought you barely knew my family? What else do you know about us? About my mother?"

"As much as any grandfather should - except how to protect her…"

"Grandfather?" Emma wasn't sure if what he was saying was real, but she found herself suddenly speechless.

"You wanted to know who I was. When I founded this town, my name was Francois Albert Blanchard. Of course, that's just one of many names I've used over the centuries and I projected a far different appearance. I was a little taller and a little burlier back then… Something more like this…" The old man snapped his fingers and in the blink of an eye, an entirely different person stood before her. This person stood six inches taller in stature and had a far stockier build than that of the often frail looking Mr. Gold. And there was no doubt that he was the spitting image of the Blanchard family patriarch.

"What are you…?" Emma demanded, backing a step away from the counter as the image of her great grandfather vanished and the familiar face of the pawn shop owner reappeared. "Walsh said something about me being descended from something more evil than him… I didn't believe it but I don't know what to believe right now…"

"Walsh wasn't wrong - there is a degree of evil to me. As the living embodiment of dark magic, there always will be evil that comes with that. I've been called many things throughout the years but essentially The Dark One has been the name that stuck."

"The _Dark One?_ Seriously? Are you another immortal like Walsh? Another trickster?"

"You're not entirely wrong, Dearie. While my powers are not exactly akin to my more volatile brother, there's some degree of similarity between the two of us."

"Brother? Walsh was your _brother_? Please tell me you're kidding me…"

"Well, _adopted_ brother. My mother had a habit of bringing home strays back then. His given name was actually Malcolm. Believe it or not, he was once the epitome of light magic - well, at least he was when we left the old world. He quickly discovered what so many magic practitioners learn the hard way - power corrupts. Unfortunately, he became addicted to it. By the time we'd founded this town to create a refuge for those like us, Malcolm was growing crazed for power. So, I created a talisman that would temper his magic. It kept him tied here to Storybrooke."

"Walsh… Malcolm… he said you'd kept him tethered here… That ring? That was the talisman, wasn't it? But if you had his powers under control, why couldn't you stop him?"

Gold sighed, leaning back against the doorframe as he tried to determine the best way to answer. "After our falling out, Malcolm vanished off into the woods and no one saw him for years. I'd honestly lost track of him, and interest in finding him, until the attack on Ursula. By then, I'd been here far too long as a Blanchard so I had to leave for a while. When I returned, my children were long grown and I bore the appearance of someone my grandchildren's age. No one had heard of or from Malcolm in a generation, yet somehow, the tale of the town's founding had evolved into the one you heard - one about a warlock seeking to trick witches out of their magic through unknown challenges rather than a rogue trickster who'd been stripped of most of his powers playing absurd, dangerous games."

"You came back and joined the coven with your own granddaughters? Interesting… and only a little disturbing…" She'd barely processed half of what he'd divulged and none of it was getting easier to digest.

"I joined the coven to protect my family. I just couldn't let them know who I was. I did everything I could to help teach them to respect magic, but I didn't know about that ridiculous love spell Malcolm planted until it was too late. He was calling himself Ozmund by then and I know he targeted your mother on purpose. He knew Ava was a Blanchard so he knew her powers would help restore his own, but he had to defeat her to steal them. I hated seeing what he did to her…"

"Let me get this straight - your power-crazed brother pretended to romance his own great-niece to steal her powers? Adopted or not, do you have any idea how depraved that is? And then - damn… He did the same thing to me?" Emma was suddenly sick to her stomach at the thought of her time spent with Walsh in Boston, now ever so thankful that their relationship had never advanced to the bedroom. "I think I'm going to be sick…"

"Try to save the retching until you're out of my store. You've no blood relation, but I agree, it was rather disturbing. I didn't know him anymore. He'd become every bit as evil and dark as I was, perhaps more so, and I had hoped that after he stole your mother's powers that he'd just leave Storybrooke and never return. He'd regained enough to cross the town line. He had no reason to come back here…"

"Until he ran into me," Emma realized. Walsh or Malcolm or whatever his name was might not have come back if he hadn't stumbled into her in Boston. "He said that running into me in Boston was completely by chance. He recognized me because I look so much like my mother. Did I bring him back here?"

"You're not to blame. No one ever set the story straight that there was no actual warlock and your mother never completely recovered from her ordeal. When you started showing signs of birthright magic - magic that comes from within, not learned from a spell book, she got scared. She took you and ran from Storybrooke, leaving your heartbroken family behind. She didn't understand she would have been safer staying here."

Emma paced a circle through the center of the shop, her mind spinning with information overload. What a week this had been…

"Walsh said he'd been back here though… Even you confirmed that you'd seen him, did work for him… He came back before I did so why didn't you stop him then? According to you, my mother's box was here the whole time so why didn't you use the talisman against him again?"

"I couldn't," Gold confesses with a loud sigh. "When he returned, Malcolm was stronger than I'd expected and as I'd done to him, he created a talisman to control my powers. In a game of chess, we'd have both been in check. I couldn't deny his requests whether it be creating potions, gathering exotic elixirs and supplies from abroad… or sending a letter…"

A letter? Emma's pupils broadened as it instantly clicked. "About a year ago, a letter showed up addressed to my mother. It had a return address here in Storybrooke. That's what sparked my interest because she'd never mentioned Storybrooke before. My curiosity got the best of me and it brought me here - right into his trap…"

"That was precisely what he wanted. He saw you in Boston and thought you'd be the weakest link of the Blanchard heirs, but he completely underestimated your tenacity - and your natural ability to question everything. That proved his downfall."

Emma was overwhelmed. She hadn't walked in here expecting any of this, but there as more she needed to know. "You created the sleeping potion that he used on Killian, didn't you?"

"You mean the young man who proved to be your true love? Unfortunately, yes, I did. I'm glad your heart was strong enough to let you see through it."

"Was kissing him really the only way to wake him?" The old man nodded, confirming that it had indeed been their true love that awakened Killian. "Alright…, I've heard about as much as my head can handle for one day but I've got two last questions. First - does Belle know who and what you are?"

"She does not. As of this moment, you are the only one who knows who I am. I change my appearance gradually each year to mimic aging and eventually, I will have to leave her and our son. In a few years, I'll return with a new identity."

"Sounds like a pretty lonely existence…"

"After five centuries, you've no idea…," he mused, voice deep with melancholy. "What was your other question?"

"Was Walsh really waiting for some package to arrive or was that all an act?"

"Oh, he was definitely anxiously awaiting an elixir he'd procured from some distant realm. Supposedly, it would have granted him the ability to use his powers beyond the bounds of Storybrooke."

"He could have used his magic in the outside world?"

"Was that a third question, Miss Swan? I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that one, but I do have work to get back to. Don't you have your Captain to return to as well?"

"Yeah, I do. Thank you for your honesty. Your secret is safe with me, but when I've finished digesting all of this overload, I'll be back with more questions."

"I'm certain you will," he replied, squeezing the body of the toy monkey as he carried it back into his private sanctuary beyond the beads. She hadn't expected he'd want to keep it, but he'd not asked for the garnet ring back. Perhaps it's job was done or perhaps it was just time to bequeath it to the new generation. Either way, she slipped it into her jacket pocket as she unlocked the door and reversed the sign to again read _Open_ with the slightest wiggle of her index finger.

Gold listened for the bell on the door to chime, for the echo of footsteps to dissipate before returning to the shop, the plush monkey still clutched in his left hand. He watched Emma make an illegal u-turn in the middle of Main Street as she departed for the harbor front. Satisfied that the only person in Storybrooke who knew his secret was out of sight, Gold propped the toy on the counter and let out a hearty chuckle.

"You've never looked better, Malcolm," he said snidely as his palm closed over the toy's head. Gripping the body with his other hand, he twisted the head and yanked it from the body, spilling foam and polyester stuffing onto the glass countertop. "I warned you to leave my family alone," he continued, pulling stuffing from the toy by the fistful until a gold ring nearly identical to the one Emma had left with toppled out from amongst the fluff except the the capping stone was a deep smoky topaz instead of a garnet. "I knew you'd have it on you," Gold beamed with a wide, toothy grin as he slipped the ring onto his left middle finger, relishing the warm glow it gave off. "The Dark One has returned."

There were no ears to hear his announcement. No one to share his elation over the sensation of lost magic once again coursing through his veins. He didn't need it to be broadcast though. The extent of his power would remain a secret and both that secret and his legacy would be secure with his great-granddaughter.

* * *

The jovial face of William Smee was the first to greet her as Emma bounded up the gangplank and stepped onto the deck with a canvas backpack slung over her left shoulder. After last night's supernatural darkness, today's brilliant sunshine was welcoming. The bay was so calm she barely noticed the ship bobbing with the gentle waves.

"Deputy Swan! It's so wonderful to see you," Mr. Smee smiled as he offered an arm to steady her land legs while maneuvering around and over obstacles including buckets, mops and ropes. "Sorry it's such a mess. Last night's storm did a number on the deck…"

"I'm sure it did. Is Killian… uh, Captain Jones in his quarters?"

"He is indeed," Smee replied. "He's been expecting you, but he has been resting as the doctor ordered. Is it true that we'll be spending another two weeks here while he recuperates?"

Emma had to stifle a giggle at Smee's question, wondering what else Killian had told them to explain why they weren't sailing out this week as planned. "Uh, yeah… the doctor didn't want him heading out into the open ocean until his shoulder is healed. Not taking any chances, you know?" She hoped her story was close enough to whatever tale Killian had spewed to be believable. Of course, she doubted it would take long for the crew to figure out the real reason.

"No matter. We're all just glad you were able to find the captain and bring him back to his ship. He instructed me to have Cookie send down some luncheon items for you once you arrived. I'll make sure to do that."

"Thank you, Mr. Smee," she replied as she raised the hatch to Killian's quarters. Smee helped her hold it open as she descended into the cabin at the ship's stern, finding Killian seated at his writing desk when she reached the bottom.

"Hello, Love," he smiled, standing to meet her in the center of the cozy cabin as the hatch fell closed above them.

"Hello to you, too," she responded, tossing her backpack onto the chair he'd just vacated. "Aren't you supposed to be _resting_?"

"This is resting," was his reply as he slipped his arms around her waist. "I'm resting my eyes on the most beautiful woman in all the realms."

"Really? I don't think this would meet those doctor's orders…," she teased him, brushing her lips against his cheek as she eased him backwards toward his bunk. His untrimmed stubble prickled her skin as he turned his head to try to capture her lips with his own but before he could, she pushed him down onto the mattress. "You're supposed to be resting…"

"And I do indeed plan to rest, but right now, I desperately want to kiss you…" She almost wanted to burst out laughing at the ridiculous pout on his face but she held her composure as she flopped down next to him on the narrow bed, tossing a couple of jewel toned silk pillows to the wall as she reached over and began to unbutton his shirt. "Now Emma…, I thought you intended for me to _rest_?" he said in mock protest as she undid the rest of the buttons and gently slid the fabric over his bandaged shoulder first before he shrugged it off his other arm.

"Oh, I fully intend to help you rest," she assured him as she planted a tender kiss on his crinkled forehead. "You're way too overdressed…"

"I do enjoy the way you think," he smirked as she shook her head.

"Don't think too much into it - at least not today," she stated, noting the immediate disappointment in his gaze. "You really do need to rest. You look exhausted, even if that potion did make you sleep an entire day. I promise you, I'm not going anywhere though. According to the laws of magic, you're my true love and honestly, I really don't want to screw this up. I want to take this time to fill in some blanks. To get to know you. Hell, I want to get to know me… A whole lot has changed for me this week and I hope you understand…"

"Emma, Love… I would wait an eternity for you. If fate means for us to be together, you won't find argument from me. I've been smitten with you from the very moment I laid eyes upon you and all this week, I've dreamed that you would feel the same."

"Well, how's this for an answer…?" She leaned closer to him, at last pressing her lips into his, gently at first but becoming increasingly fervent, driven by a passion she'd never experienced before.

_So this was what true love felt like? Maybe she still had a lot to learn… And she was more than willing to commit a lifetime to it._


End file.
